< 


LIBRARY 

OF    THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 
Class 


Old   Testament   Criticism   and 
the  Christian  Church 


Works  by  the  same  Author. 

THE  MESSAGES  OF   THE  PROPHETIC 

AND  PRIESTLY  HISTORIANS. 
THE  DIVINE  PURSUIT. 
IN  THE  HOUR  OF  SILENCE. 


Old  Testament  Criticism 

and 

The  Christian  Church 

By 

John   Edgar   McFadyen 

M.A.  (Glas.),  B.A.  (Oxon.) 

Professor  of  Old  Testament  Literature  and  Exegesis 
in  Knox  College,  Toronto 


New  York 

Charles  Scribner's  Sons 
1903 


Copyright,  ipoj 
BY  CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Published,  May,  1903 


THE    CAXTON     PRESS 
NEW  YORK  CITY,  U.  S.  A. 


TO  THE 
REV.  PROFESSOR  GEORGE  ADAM  SMITH,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

iflflg  GTcacfjer  anU  JFvitntr, 

TO    WHOSE    TEACHING    I    OWE    MORE    THAN    I    CAN    TELL 
IN   WORDS, 

AND    WHOSE    FRIENDSHIP   HAS    BEEN    TO    ME    AN    INSPIRATION 
AND   A   JOY, 

THIS    VOLUME    IS    DEDICATED 

WITH    GRATITUDE   AND   AFFECTION. 


Preface 

To  any  one  who  cares  at  all  for  the  church  of  Christ, 
the  present  theological  situation  must  be  one  of  unique 
interest ;  to  many,  indeed,  it  is  one  of  grave  apprehen- 
sion. It  is  undeniable  that  there  is  a  great  critical 
movement  within  the  church,  almost  within  her  every 
branch.  What  is  to  be  the  church's  attitude  towards 
that  movement  ?  Shall  she  welcome  it,  or  fear  it,  or 
anathematize  it  ?  Ignore  it  she  clearly  cannot ;  for 
the  problems  are  thrust  upon  her  by  her  own  sons,  on 
the  right  hand  and  on  the  left. 

The  situation  has  its  own  element  of  pathos.  The 
energies  which  might  be  devoted  to  positive,  if  not 
aggressive,  religious  enterprise,  are  largely  consumed 
in  the  discussion  of  questions,  which,  while  they  are 
of  infinitely  more  than  academic  interest,  yet  do  not 
constitute  the  peculiar  or  essential  work  which  it  is 
the  business  of  the  church  to  do.  But  the  questions 
cannot  be  suppressed.  They  suggest  themselves  ne- 
cessarily to  minds  which  participate,  even  in  a  small 
measure,  in  the  intellectual  culture  of  the  age.  And 
after  all,  though  it  is  not  by  any  means  the  chief  task 
of  the  church  to  attempt  an  answer  to  those  questions, 
it  is,  undoubtedly,  one  of  her  tasks  ;  for  the  truth  for 
which  she  stands  will  no  longer  powerfully  command 


viii  PREFACE 

the  conscience,  if  it  remains  unrelated  to  contemporary 
thought,  or  if  a  suspicion  arises  that  it  can  only  be 
related  by  artifice. 

The  problems  are  urgent  and  difficult,  and  the 
answers  to  them  divide  the  church.  Between  the 
representatives  of  the  opposing  views  there  has,  for 
the  most  part,  been  a  singular  lack  of  that  charity 
which  one  might  reasonably  have  expected  within  the 
church.  Seldom  has  either  party  been  at  the  pains 
to  understand  the  other.  Both  sides  have  suffered 
from  ridicule  and  misrepresentation,  with  the  result 
that  the  religious  public,  as  a  whole,  is  in  a  state  of 
bewildered  panic,  and  has  very  little  real  knowledge 
of  the  facts  of  the  case.  It  is  to  aid  the  man  who 
honestly  desires  a  dispassionate  presentation  of  what 
Old  Testament  criticism  is  and  does,  of  how  it  works 
and  what  its  bearings  are  upon  vital  elements  in  the 
Christian  faith,  that  this  volume  has  been  written. 
To  effect  this  end  it  has  often  been  necessary  to  go 
somewhat  into  detail.  It  is  easy,  both  for  friends  and 
foes,  to  make  sweeping  assertions  as  to  the  nature 
and  effects  of  the  critical  method ;  but  they  carry 
little  conviction,  unless  they  are  supported  by  facts. 
Far  more  important,  for  example,  than  to  indulge  in 
loose  generalities  about  the  nature  of  inspiration,  is 
frankly  to  face  the  Biblical  facts,  and  to  let  our  theory 
—  if  we  can  frame  any  —  be  determined  by  them. 

In  order  that  the  situation  might  be  as  fairly  pre- 
sented as  possible,  I  have  thought  it  advisable,  in  many 
cases,  to  let  both  the  critics  and  their  opponents  speak 
for  themselves.  Whether,  for  example,  a  critic  believes 
in  the  supernatural  or  not,  will  be  best  ascertained 


\ 


PREFACE  ix 

from  his  own  utterances.  This  principle  accounts  for 
the  comparative  frequency  of  quotation  in  certain  parts 
of  the  discussion. 

It  is  difficult  to  find  a  word  to  designate  those  who, 
in  the  main,  support  traditional  opinion.  It  is  invid- 
ious to  call  them  traditionalists  —  even  the  term  con- 
servative is  not  always  popular  —  and  it  is  somewhat 
arrogant  to  assume  that  only  the  opponents  of  tradi- 
tion work  on  scientific  methods.  Though  I  have 
usually  spoken  of  the  two  parties  as  the  critics  and 
their  opponents,  I  do  not  mean  at  all  to  imply  that  the 
opponents  are  devoid  of  critical  acumen  or  scholar- 
ship. I  simply  use  the  words  for  convenience'  sake, 
as  their  meaning  is  not  likely  to  be  mistaken. 

My  object  in  not  infrequently  referring  to  foreign 
writers  was  a  threefold  one:  partly  to  enable  those 
who  are  sufficiently  interested  to  prosecute  the  study 
further  for  themselves  ;  partly  to  show  that  the  move- 
ment is  a  universal  one,  and  that  the  situation  in  other 
countries  is  just  as  complex  as  in  our  own  —  Higher 
Criticism  has  roused  just  as  much  resentment  in 
Germany,  for  example,  as  in  Britain  or  America ; 
arid  partly  to  show,  through  the  medium  of  their  own 
utterances,  what  precisely  it  is  that  the  much-abused 
foreign  critics  have  done  and  said.  It  has  been  too 
much  the  fashion  to  forget  that  there  is  a  large 
variety  of  opinion  within  the  critical  ranks,  and  that 
epithets  applicable  to  some  scholars  are  totally  inap- 
plicable to  others. 

This  volume  has  in  view  the  man  whose  faith  has 
been  perplexed  by  current  criticism,  or  by  the  rumors 
and  representations  of  it.  It  tries  to  show  him  what 


x  PREFACE 

"  that  criticism  is,  and  how  it  not  only  in  no  way  imperils 
his  faith,  but  even  helps  him  to  bridge  the  gulf  that 
too  often  yawns  between  faith  and  reason.  I  well 
remember  the  confusion  and  sorrow  that,  for  a  time, 
came  into  my  own  life,  when  the  newer  view  of  the 
Bible  first  began  to  make  its  appeal  to  me;  and  I 
write  with  the  tenderest  regard  for  all  who  feel  as  I 
then  felt.  The  times  of  transition  are  hard.  It  would 
be  a  grief  to  me  if  any  word  of  mine  should  wound  the 
sensitiveness  of  any  who  love  the  Lord  or  the  sacred 
Scriptures.  It  has  been  my  earnest  desire  to  help 
all  who  have  been  troubled.  Of  ridicule,  abuse,  and 
provocation  there  has  already  been  more  than  enough. 
Not  only  by  familiarizing  myself  with  the  literature 
which  represents  the  opposition  to  the  critical  move- 
ment, but  also  by  numerous  discussions  and  conversa- 
tions with  laymen,  students,  and  ministers,  on  both 
sides  of  the  Atlantic,  I  have  sought  to  understand 
sympathetically  the  spirit  and  methods  of  the  opposi- 
tion, to  discover  the  secret  of  its  almost  vehement 
earnestness,  and  the  interests  which  it  believes  to  be 
imperilled  by  the  advance  of  criticism.  I  have  the 
profoundest  sympathy  for  those  who  share  the  views 

'  from  which  this  volume  is,  in  part,  an  implicit  dissent; 
for  I  know  the  pang  of  parting  with  them.  But  in 
parting  with  the  things  that  can  be  shaken,  one  may 
be  confirmed  all  the  more  in  the  things  that  abide. 

I  desire  here  to  express  my  very  earnest  thanks  to 
my  friend  the  Rev.  Professor  W.  G.  Jordan,  D.D.,  of 
Queen's  University,  Kingston,  who,  in  spite  of  severe 
pressure  of  official  duty,  very  carefully  read  all  the 
proof-sheets  through,  and  favored  me  with  many 


PREFACE  xi 

trenchant  and  valuable  criticisms,  of  which  I  have 
gladly  availed  myself.  I  have  also  to  thank  Professor 
Kent,  of  Yale  University,  for  help  and  encouragement. 


JOHN  E.  McFADYEN. 


KNOX  COLLEGE,  TORONTO, 
7th  February,  1903. 


Contents 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    THE  PRESENT  DISTRESS 1 

II.    THE  DISCOURTESIES  OP  CRITICISM.     ...  33 

III.  THE  CONFUSIONS  OF  CRITICISM 48 

IV.  THE  FUNCTION  OF  CRITICISM 77 

V.    THE    HISTORICAL   METHOD  —  LOSSES   AND 

GAINS 103 

VI.    THE  METHODS  OF  CRITICISM 137 

VII.    THE  ESSENCE  OF  PROTESTANTISM  ....  174 

VIII.    CRITICISM  AND  CHRIST 196 

IX.    CRITICISM  AND  THE  SUPERNATURAL     .     .     .  230 

X.    CRITICISM  AND  INSPIRATION 268 

XL    A  GREAT  GULF  FIXED? 313 

XII.    THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  IN  THE  CHURCH   .     .  345 

APPENDIX 365 

INDEX  .  371 


Summary 


CHAPTER  I 


THE  PRESENT  DISTRESS. — The  gravity  of  the  issue  created 
for  the  church  by  criticism  is  acknowledged  on  every  hand. 
Literary  energy  of  the  critical  school.  Critical  movement  coun- 
tenanced by  distinguished  preachers.  Objections  urged  against 
Higher  Criticism  :  disregard  of  tradition,  denial  of  credibility  of 
Scripture,  of  predictive  prophecy,  of  authority  of  New  Testament, 
of  authority  of  Christ,  of  the  supernatural,  of  all  authority. 
Difficulties  of  the  preacher.  The  situation  illustrated  by  recent 
cases  in  America  and  Germany.  Concessions  to  criticism  by  its 
opponents.  Term  Higher  Criticism  objectionable.  The  critics, 
it  is  urged,  are  irreverent,  dogmatic,  tactless,  indifferent  to  wel- 
fare of  church.  But  much  admirable  work  within  the  sphere  of 
practical  religion  has  been  done  by  critics.  Critical  processes  not 
to  be  depreciated  by  one  who  has  not  endeavored  to  understand 
them.  Criticism  only  a  means  to  an  end.  Importance  of  con- 
structive work.  Religious  value  of  criticism  acknowledged  not 
only  by  scholars,  but  by  preachers.  Criticism  helpful,  but  not 
indispensable. 

CHAPTER  II 

THE  DISCOURTESIES  OF  CRITICISM.  —  There  is  no  place  in 
criticism  for  ridicule.  Injustice  of  misrepresentation,  innuendo, 
caricature,  and  abuse.  Flippancy  and  irreverence  of  some  critics. 
The  place  of  humor.  The  need  of  free,  earnest,  and  reverent 
study. 

CHAPTER  III 

THE  CONFUSIONS  OF  CRITICISM.  —  Differences  among  the 
critics  themselves.  (A)  Historical  Books  (i)  Prose.  Date  of 
documents  in  the  Pentateuch,  of  Book  of  the  Covenant,  of 


xvi  SUMMARY 

Decalogue.  Was  there  a  general  return  in  53 7  B.C.?  Did  Ezra 
precede  Nehemiah  ?  (ii)  Poetry.  Song  of  Jacob,  Elegy  of  David, 
Song  of  Deborah.  (B)  Prophets.  Date  of  Amos,  of  Is.  xl^lxvi, 
Ax-^  Authenticity  of  Messianic  passages.  Suffering  servant.  (C) 
Other  books.  Is  Psalter  entirely  post-exilic?  Date  of  individual 
Ps.  xlvi,  xx,  xxxiii,  cxxi.  Psalms  of  sacrifice.  Proverbs,  Job, 
Daniel.  Other  differences.  Differences  among  the  opponents  of 
criticism.  Differences  largely  accounted  for  by  the  slenderness 
of  the  data.  Contrast  Hebrew  literature  with  Greek.  Critics 
often  express  their  judgment  with  reserve.  "  Virtual  omni- 
science." Criticism  continually  submitted  to  the  severest  tests. 
Conservative  reaction  in  criticism.  Assured  results :  composite- 
ness  of  the  history  in  the  Hexateuch,  three  codes  of  legislation, 
date  of  Deuteronomy,  importance  of  exile,  contrast  between 
prophet  and  priest,  date  of  closing  of  Canon,  progressiveness  of 
revelation. 

CHAPTER  IV 

THE  FUNCTION  OF  CRITICISM.  —  History  of  word  criticism. 
Criticism  is  involved  in  all  opinions,  conservative  and  radical 
alike.  Ps.  xxiii.  Pentateuch.  Is.  xl-lxvi.  We  are  all  critics. 
Preference  for  certain  portions  of  Scripture  implies  critical  instinct. 
Where  there  are  obvious  difficulties,  e.g.,  contradictions,  criticism 
becomes  formally  necessary.  Conclusions  of  criticism  often  only 
probable.  Conditions  of  sound  criticism  :  knowledge  of  author's 
language,  text,  early  witnesses  to  text,  knowledge  of  history  of 
words,  sympathy  with  author's  aim.  Sympathy  especially  neces- 
sary in  interpretation  of  Bible.  "  Go  not  into  the  way  of  the 
Gentiles."  Matthew  Arnold's  view  of  Old  Testament.  Concep- 
tion of  God  affects  attitude  to  miracle,  and  interpretation  generally. 

CHAPTER  V 

THE  HISTORICAL  METHOD.  —  This  method  not  absolutely 
new.  Luther.  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia.  Superscriptions  of  the 
Psalms.  Definition  of  the  historical  method.  Opposed  to  alle- 
gorical interpretation.  The  timeless  element. 


SUMMARY  xvii 

LOSSES.  —  Many  of  the  losses  only  temporary.  For  some  the 
authority  of  morality  has  been  shaken.  Devotional  use  of  Bible 
affected.  Criticism  a  menace  to  evangelical  fervor,  and  to  inter- 
est in  foreign  missions.  Counsel  to  young  men;  to  preachers. 
Illustrations  of  practical  reconciliation  of  faith  and  criticism. 
Dogmatic  use  of  the  Bible  affected. 

GAINS.  —  Possibility  of  arbitrary  interpretation  greatly  re- 
duced. Some  books  of  the  Bible  have  been  rescued.  Impulse 
to  study  of  the  Bible.  Reasonable  view  of  the  history.  Apolo- 
getic (a)  moral  (b)  intellectual,  made  easier.  History  corrobo- 
rated. Extravagances  in  belief  and  conduct  rebuked.  Larger 
view  of  revelation.  Best  defence  against  scepticism. 

CHAPTER  VI 

THE  METHODS  OF  CRITICISM.  —  Fairness  of  the  claim  that 
the  matter  should  not  be  left  exclusively  to  the  experts.  (I)  His- 
tory. Discussion  of  composite  documents.  Diatessaron.  Gen. 
vi,  5-vii,  5  (II)  Prophecy.  Is.  ^xlyni.  (Ill)  Psalms.  Ps.  xl 
(IV)  Patriarchal  stories.  Genealogies  cannot  be  always  strictly 
interpreted.  Incidents  very  far  removed  from  record  of  them. 
Theophanies  occasionally  imply  a  conception  of  God  which  is  not 
strictly  spiritual.  Ethical  and  religious  teaching  often  not  only 
in  advance  of  time  of  Judges,  but  distinctly  prophetic  in  tone. 

CHAPTER  VII 

THE  ESSENCE  OF  PROTESTANTISM.  —  Protestantism  is  a  spirit 
not  to  be  absolutely  identified  with  particular  beliefs.  It  must 
always  reserve  the  right  to  protest.  The  Protestant  cannot  deny 
the  right  of  investigation.  The  Reformers  were,  in  one  sense, 
rationalists.  Conjoint  appeal  to  Scripture  and  reason.  Luther 
at  Worms.  His  free  criticism  of  Scripture.  Unbridled  liberty 
of  opinion  leads  to  endless  subjectivity.  Denominationalism. 
Proposal  to  establish  a  council.  Essence  of  Protestantism  not 
adherence  to  a  creed,  but  possession  of  a  spirit.  Anti-Protestant 
influences  within  the  Protestant  churches.  Renaissance  and  Ref- 


xviii  SUMMARY 

ormation.  Knowledge  and  Faith.  Rediscovery  of  man  and  God. 
Spirit  of  Protestantism  in  all  true  scientific  investigation,  Biblical 
and  extra-Biblical. 

CHAPTER  VIII 

CRITICISM  AND  CHRIST.  —  Did  Christ  give  a  decision  on  Old 
Testament  questions  ?  Reverence  for  Christ  cherished  by  critics 
and  opponents  alike.  Function  of  New  Testament.  Inaccurate 
allusions  to  Old  Testament.  Paul's  argument  from  singular 
"seed."  "Thou  shalt  not  muzzle  the  ox."  Christ's  attitude: 
reverent,  but  fearless.  References  are  large.  He  fulfils  spirit  of 
Old  Testament  rather  than  detail.  Certain  books  have  peculiar 
interest  for  Him.  Alludes  to  ne?rly  all  parts.  Authority  is  in- 
herent, not  adherent.  Omissions  and  discrepancies  show  that 
evangelists  laid  little  stress  on  (Mosaic)  authorship.  Name  some- 
times designates  book  where  authorship  is  impossible :  e.g.,  Samuel. 
What  of  David,  Moses  ?  Only  a  few  small  portions  of  Pentateuch 
claim  to  be  by  Moses.  Name  by  which  a  book  is  familiarly 
known  no  guarantee  of  authorship  :  cf.  Apostles'  Creed,  2d  Peter, 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  1st  book  of  Moses.  Discussion  of  Jonah. 
110th  Psalm.  Ex.  iii,  6.  Christ's  words  leave  the  literary  ques- 
tions open.  The  Person  of  Christ :  limitations  of  power,  knowl- 
edge. Distinction  between  what  Christ  taught  and  what  lay  within 
the  "neutral  zone."  His  mission  is  spiritual. 


CHAPTER  IX 

CRITICISM  AND  THE  SUPERNATURAL.  —  Importance  of  super- 
natural. Criticism  charged  with  denying  it.  Criticism  has  no 
right  to  assume  impossibility  of  supernatural  at  the  outset.  Pre- 
dispositions of  some  kind  inevitable.  Criticism  not  committed  to 
a  denial  of  the  supernatural.  The  cause  of  Old  Testament  criti- 
cism is  not  to  be  absolutely  identified  with  the  opinions  of 
Kuenen  and  Wellhausen.  Protests :  Meinhold,  Loisy.  Historical 
criticism  not  to  be  confused  with  literary  criticism.  A  man  who 
denies  the  miraculous  may  yet  believe  in  the  divinity  of  the  nat- 


SUMMARY  xix 

ural  order.  The  real  miracle  of  Israel  is  the  uniqueness  of  her 
history  and  religion.  This  is  the  strongest  apologetic.  The 
Moabite  stone.  Holzinger,  Loisy,  Sanday,  Stave,  Lenormant. 
Much  poetry  scattered  throughout  the  historical  books.  Danger 
of  interpreting  poetry  as  prose.  Froude's  Essay  on  The  Lives  of 
the  Saints:  Judges  iv,  v.  Josh,  x,  12,  13.  Ex.  xv.  Judges  xv. 
Poetical  basis  often  practically  certain,  even  where  it  is  not 
directly  appealed  to.  Josh.  vi. 

CHAPTER  X 

CRITICISM  AND  INSPIRATION.  —  (A)  Difficulty  of  defining 
Inspiration.  Bible  word  of  man  as  well  as  of  God.  Attempts 
to  explain  away  moral  offences.  Funcke.  Difficulties  must  be 
frankly  faced,  (i)  Science  :  Gen.  i,  Gunkel.  (ii)  History:  dis- 
crepancies; idea  more  than  fact;  flood  story:  Gen.  i-xi.  Deu- 
teronomy :  Thucydides.  Chronicles.  Ecclesiastes.  Jonah,  (iii) 
Moral  and  religious  conceptions.  (B)  (i)  History:  through  all 
is  God,  an  ever-present  fact.  Morality.  Fall,  Flood :  Babylonian 
parallels.  Inspiration  of  the  Hebrew  stories  undeniable,  (ii)  The 
prophetic  consciousness.  Interest  of  the  Bible  predominantly 
religious.  Penetrate  through  discrepancies  to  central  truth. 
Scripture  reveals  the  faith  of  its  writers.  The  praises  of  Scrip- 
ture within  Scripture  show  that  it  was  designed  to  serve  moral 
and  religious  ends.  All  Scripture  is  not  upon  the  same  level; 
and  there  is  much  great  religious  teaching  outside  Scripture. 
The  Canon  embodies  the  experience  of  the  church. 

CHAPTER  XI 

A  GREAT  GULF  FIXED?  —  Critics  and  opponents  are  both 
within  the  church.  Both  sides  admit  that  the  gulf  is  impassable. 
Contrast  the  average  belief  on  important  points  on  both  sides. 
The  historical  books :  the  prophetical ;  Psalms,  Proverbs,  Eccle- 
siastes, the  Canon.  The  literary  results  usually  go  with  certain 
historic  results  :  on  the  critical  view,  e.g.,  the  early  history  would 
not  be  so  reliable,  and  the  law  would  belong  to  Judaism.  The 
traditional  view  emphasizes  the  transcendence  of  God,  the  critical, 


xx  SUMMARY 

His  immanence.  Each  believes  in  the  essential  unity  of  the 
Bible.  The  supernatural.  The  patriarchal  stories.  The  truth 
of  Christianity  does  not  depend  on  their  historicity.  The  posi- 
tive religious  content  of  Scripture  remains  unaffected  by  criticism : 
cf.  patriarchal  stories,  Ps.  xxiii,  li.  The  gulf  is  not  so  great. 

CHAPTER  XII 

THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  IN  THE  CHURCH.  —  Ancient  and 
modern  tendency  to  ignore  the  Old  Testament.  It  has  a  twofold 
value  (i)  absolute  (ii)  relative.  (i)  Its  absolute  value  is  often 
forgotten.  Its  value  to  Christ ;  to  us.  Divine  purpose  seen  in 
the  history.  The  prophetic  message  stands  near  to  modern  needs. 
The  Psalms  voice  our  devotion,  (ii)  The  Old  Testament  condi- 
tions and  illuminates  the  New.  It  culminates  in  Christ,  and 
without  Him  is  not  strictly  intelligible.  The  roots  of  Christian 
faith  are  in  the  Old  Testament.  Hence  the  importance  of  the 
study  of  it  in  church  and  college.  Dangers  of  traditionalism  and 
radicalism.  Every  help  from  every  quarter  welcome.  Interests 
at  stake  not  only  scientific,  but  religious.  Our  work  is  not  final : 
truth  advances  with  the  centuries. 


ERRATUM 

On  page  38,  line  17,  between  "fragments"  and  "predicated" 
insert  "  of  the  documents." 


Old   Testament   Criticism   and 
the  Christian  Church 


Old  Testament  Criticism 

AND 

The  Christian  Church 

CHAPTER  I 
THE  PRESENT  DISTRESS 

A  DISTINGUISHED  preacher,  who  has  had  long  and 
ample  opportunity  for  observation,  and  who  has  him- 
self borne  a  conspicuous  part  in  the  conflict,  expresses 
it  as  his  deliberate  conviction  that  there  is  being  forced 
"upon  the  British  Churches  the  gravest  issue  that 
any  of  them  has  had  to  face  in  living  memory."  l 
Few  men  who  have  been  following  even  remotely  the 
most  recent  developments  of  Biblical  study  would 
deny  that  those  earnest  words  contain  a  large  measure 
of  truth.  No  doubt  it  is  always  hard,  if  indeed  it  is 
ever  possible,  to  gauge  with  any  accuracy  the  full 
meaning  or  magnitude  of  a  contemporary  situation  : 
time  alone  can  fully  tell.  But  it  does  seem  that  the 
Church  to-day,  in  all  her  branches,  is  face  to  face 
with  a  crisis  of  the  most  serious  kind.  Crises  there 
have  been  as  keen  before,  and  there  will  be  again ; 
but  never  before  have  the  problems  awoke  so  public 
an  interest  or  so  universal  a  trepidation.  What  is 
conjectured  or  discovered  in  the  study  to-day  is  pub- 

1  Dr.  John  Smith,  "  The  Integrity  of  Scripture,"  p.  279. 
1 


2      OLD    TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

lished  in  the  magazine  to-morrow,  and  discussed  by 
the  newspaper  on  the  third  day.  The  general  public 
know  little  of  the  results,  and  less  of  the  processes ; 
but  they  know  enough  —  those  who  care  at  all  for 
these  things  —  to  know  that  the  attitude  of  scholar- 
ship to  the  Bible  is  not  what  it  used  to  be,  and  they 
fear  that  the  centre  of  gravity  has  shifted. 

From  every  side  comes  painful  corroboration  of  the 
strong  words  quoted  above.  Careful  observers  assure 
us  that  the  breach  between  the  Church  and  the  edu- 
cated classes,  especially  upon  the  continent  of  Europe,1 
is  widening.  Hundreds  of  men,  we  are  told,  have 
been  made  infidels  by  criticism.  Ministers  who  have 
much  to  do  with  working  men  tell  us  that  "  the 
lowered  views  of  Scripture  and  of  its  truthfulness, 
reliability,  and  Divine  authority  that  have  become 
prevalent,  are  undermining  the  faith  of  many,  multi- 
plying sceptics  every  day,  and  rendering  appeals  to 
Scripture  as  the  word  of  the  Lord  less  powerful  and 
quickening  than  they  were  wont  to  be."  2  In  one  of 
the  Synodical  reports  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  of 

1  Rev.  J.  J.  Lias,  in  his  "Principles  of  Biblical  Criticism,"  p.  216, 
mentions  the  case  of  a  speaker  at  Stuttgart,  addressing  the  Evangelical 
League  in  1887,  and  urging,  among  the  deplorable  results  of  criticism, 
that  the  laity  were  being  estranged  from  the  Church,  that  the  belief 
was  growing  that  the  only  advantage  of  Protestantism  over  Romanism 
was  the  freedom  to  believe  nothing,  and  that  thus  a  plausible  excuse 
was  afforded  for  taking  no  interest  whatever  in  religion. 

2  Mclntosh,  "  Is  Christ  infallible  and  the  Bible  true  ?  "  p.  457.     Cf. 
Theodore  Cuyler :   "  I  am  happy  to  say  that  in  my  early  ministry 
the  preachers  of  God's  Word  were  not  hamstrung  by  any  doubt  of  the 
divine  inspiration  or  infallibility  of  the  Book  that  lay  before  them  on 
their  pulpits.      The   questions,  '  Have  we  got  any  Bible  ?  '  and  '  If 
any  Bible,  how  much  ?  '  had  not  been  hatched  "  (Recollections  of  a 
Long  Life,  pp.  78,  79;  cf.  285-287). 


THE    PRESENT    DISTRESS  3 

Canada, "  destructive  criticism  "  is  alleged  as  "  breed- 
ing irreverence,"  and  classified  as  one  of  "  the  influ- 
ences which  most  strongly  antagonize  the  advancement 
of  true  godliness."  This  sentiment  would  no  doubt 
find  an  echo  in  many  churches  throughout  many  lands. 
Nor  is  the  unrest  by  any  means  confined  to  the 
laity,  who  might  not  be  expected  to  have  any  special 
theological  equipment.  In  every  part  of  the  theo- 
logical world  the  strain  is  equally  felt.  It  is  notorious 
that  divinity  students,  at  any  rate  in  the  earlier  stages 
of  their  course,  are  often  perplexed  by  the  teaching  of 
their  college :  cases  have  occurred  where  they  have 
been  constrained  by  conscientious  scruples  to  abandon 
the  study  of  theology  altogether.  And  the  confusion 
and  distress  are  occasionally  shared  by  ministers, 
young  and  old  alike,  who  are  usually  too  busily  en- 
grossed by  the  practical  duties  of  the  pastor's  life  to 
follow  with  accuracy  the  often  intricate  processes  of 
Biblical  study.  It  is  a  well  established  fact  that 
within  recent  years  the  number  of  candidates  for  the 
ministry  in  almost  every  church  on  both  sides  of  the 
Atlantic  has  been  declining,  and  criticism  has  been 
held  to  be  at  least  partly  responsible.  In  every  church, 
there  is  probably  a  very  large  majority  hostile  to  the 
newer  movement,  which  is  instinctively  feared,  even 
when  it  is  not  perfectly  understood ;  for  that  move- 
ment is  supposed  to  imperil  all  that  is  distinctive  of 
the  Christian  faith.  The  Roman  Catholic  Church 
itself  has  not  been  untouched  by  it.1  It  feels  the  issues 

1  The  reality  of  the  critical  movement  within  the  Church  of  Rome 
has  been  practically  attested  by  the  series  of  commentaries  projected 
by  Pere  Lagrange,  of  which  his  own  commentary  on  Judges  is  the 
first  instalment.  • 


4      OLD   TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

to  be  serious,  and  a  commission,  representative  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  scholarship  of  many  lands,  has  been 
appointed  "to  ascertain  the  limits  of  the  freedom 
which  is  allowed  to  the  Catholic  exegete  in  the  Bibli- 
cal questions  of  the  day ;  to  point  out  definitely  con- 
clusions that  must  be  maintained  in  the  interests  of 
orthodoxy,  others  that  must  be  rejected  as  incompat- 
ible with,  or  dangerous  to,  divine  faith ;  as  well  as 
the  debatable  ground  between  the  two  where  each  one 
is  free  to  hold  his  own  view."  Even  those  who  be- 
lieve that  religion  has  nothing  to  fear  from  criticism 
are  yet  compelled  by  the  facts  to  admit  that  "  criti- 
cism seems  to  make  the  Old  Testament  alike  inac- 
cessible and  unintelligible  to  the  pastors  and  their 
flocks."  i 

Within  the  last  twenty  years  or  so,  both  in  America 
and  Europe,  churches  have  shown  more  or  less  em- 
phatically their  disapproval  of  the  newer  movement. 
The  trial  of  Professor  W.  Robertson  Smith  has  be- 
come a  great  historical  landmark  in  the  theological 
development  of  Scotland.  In  America,  the  cases  of 
Professors  C.  H.  Toy,  H.  P.  Smith,  and  C.  A.  Briggs 
are  familiar.  The  Church  is  fully  awake  to  the  impor- 
tance of  the  issue,  and  it  is  felt  that  that  issue  is  by 
no  means  an  academic  one  :  it  touches  the  most  pro- 
found and  sacred  interests  of  men.  The  rapid  suc- 
cess of  such  a  book  as  "  Is  Christ  infallible  and  the 
Bible  true  ? "  the  widespread  interest  aroused  by  the 
recent  publication  of  the  two  great  English  Diction- 
aries of  the  Bible,  the  numerous  queries  touching 
Biblical  difficulties  in  the  "  Open  Letters  "  column  of 

1  Fulliquet,  "  Les  experiences  religieuses  d'lsrael,"  p.  2. 


THE    PRESENT   DISTRESS  5 

the  "  Sunday  School  Times  " — these  things  are  of  real 
significance.  Any  powerful  book,  presupposing  the 
critical  standpoint,  is  discussed,  even  when  it  is  not 
read,  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  the 
churches  ;  and  it  is  sure  of  an  answer,  whether  of 
judicial  calmness  or  of  hysterical  abuse.  The  abuse, 
though  not  justified,  is  not  unintelligible,  when  one 
considers  how  serious  the  issue  is  felt  on  all  sides  to 
be.  As  competent  an  authority  as  Mr.  C.  G.  Monte- 
fiore1  believes  that  the  movement  must  issue  either 
in  Christian  Unitarianism  or  in  Jewish  "  Reform." 
The  new  methods,  it  is  believed,  have  shaken  the  old 
doctrines:  they  have  affected  —  some  would  say  de- 
stroyed —  the  power  of  the  Bible  as  a  manual  of  de- 
votion and  as  the  source  of  theology.  Indeed,  Canon 
Girdlestone,  one  of  the  more  courteous  opponents  of 
the  movement,  at  least  in  its  more  extravagant  phases, 
maintains  that  "  mission  work  at  home  and  abroad 
would  be  paralyzed  if  the  new  criticism  were  allowed 
to  have  free  course  among  us."  2 

One  of  the  most  interesting  features  in  the  whole 
situation  is  not  so  much  the  literary  energy  of  the 
critical  school  —  though  that  alone  would  betoken  an 
extraordinary  interest  and  enthusiasm  3 — but  the  fact 

1  "Jewish  Quarterly  Review,"  October,  1901,  p.  148. 

2  "Doctor  Doctorum,"  p.  185. 

8  In  this  connection,  mention  should  be  made  of  the  publication  of 
a  new  Dutch  translation  of  the  Old  Testament,  with  introductions 
(1st  part,  1899  ;  2d,  1901),  designed  to  satisfy  the  demands  of  scientific 
scholarship,  and  executed  by  four  of  Holland's  greatest  scholars  (Kue- 
nen,  Hooykaas,  Rosters,  and  Oort),  the  first  three  of  whom  died  in  the 
course  of  the  work,  which  was  brought  to  a  completion  by  the  inde- 
fatigable labors  of  Oort.  A  new  German  translation  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament, edited  by  Kautzsch,  assisted  by  ten  other  scholars,  appeared  iu 


6      OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

that  so  much  of  that  energy  is  devoted  to  the  popular- 
izing of  critical  results.  Some  of  the  work  of  the 
greatest  scholars  both  in  England  and  Germany  was 
delivered  before  popular  audiences  or  has  been  pre- 
sented in  popular  form.  It  is  enough  to  mention 
Professor  Robertson  Smith's  "  Old  Testament  in  the 
Jewish  Church,"  "  The  Prophets  of  Israel,"  and  "  The 
Religion  of  the  Semites ; "  Cornill's  "  Prophets  of 
Israel,"1  and  Harnack's  "What  is  Christianity?"2 
Occasionally  books  dealing  with  the  history  or  the 
religion  frankly  presuppose  the  critical  standpoint, 
such  as  Gray's  "  The  Divine  Discipline  of  Israel ; " 
G.  A.  Smith's  "  Modern  Criticism  and  the  Preaching 
of  the  Old  Testament ; "  Ottley's  "  History  of  the  He- 
brews," or  his  Bampton  Lectures  on  "  Aspects  of  the 
Old  Testament ; "  Budde's  "  Religion  of  Israel  to  the 
Exile ; "  Kent's  "  History  of  the  Hebrew  People."  An 
American  series  on  "  The  Messages  of  the  Bible  "  has 
for  its  avowed  purpose  to  enable  any  reader  of  the 
Bible  to  understand  its  meaning  as  a  devout  scholar 
of  to-day  does.  Some  of  the  best  volumes  in  the  "  Ex- 
positor's Bible  "  series  are  written  by  scholars  whose 
sympathies  with  the  critical  standpoint  are  well 

1890-94.  In  accordance  with  a  widely  expressed  desire,  a  popular  edi- 
tion of  the  latter  book,  omitting  all  critical  comment,  was  published  in 
1899.  We  have  not  yet  in  English  anything  corresponding  to  either 
of  those  translations.  The  gap  will  no  doubt  be  filled  in  due  time  by 
"  The  Students'  Old  Testament,  logically  and  chronologically  arranged 
and  translated  "  (Scribner's),  on  which  Professor  Kent  of  Yale  Uni- 
versity is  now  engaged. 

1  "  Der  israelitische  Prophetismus." 

2  "  Das  Wesen  des  Christeutums."    To  the  books  above  mentioned 
may  now  be  added  Kautzsch's  lectures  on  "  The  Poetry  and  the  Po- 
etical Books  of  the  Old  Testament"  (1902,  not  translated). 


THE    PRESENT    DISTRESS  7 

known ;  those,  e.  g.  on  Deuteronomy,  Isaiah,  the 
Minor  Prophets,  Daniel,  and  others.  Most  of  the 
contributors  to  the  leading  theological  magazines  of 
Britain  and  America,  exclusive  of  those  which  are 
practically,  if  not  avowedly,  conservative,  write  from 
the  critical  standpoint.  Numberless  efforts  are 
made  by  scholars  to  reconcile  the  religious  public  to 
the  critical  attitude  from  which  it  stands  aloof ;  books, 
e.  g.  like  Cheyne's  "  Aids  to  the  Devout  Study  of 
Criticism,"  Peters'  "  The  Old  Testament  and  the  New 
Scholarship,"  and  "  Contentio  Yeritatis,"  a  recent 
volume  by  Oxford  scholars  who  believe  that  "  a  very 
considerable  restatement  and  even  reconstruction  of 
parts  of  our  religious  teaching  is  inevitable."  1 

Nor  is  this  literary  activity  confined  to  the  rep- 
resentatives of  the  University  and  the  theological 
seminary ;  the  movement  is  supported  and  even 
championed  by  some  of  the  greatest  preachers  of  the 
day,  among  whom  Dr.  R.  F.  Horton  occupies  an  hon- 
ored place.  Significant  in  this  connection  is  the  vol- 
ume on  "  The  Messages  of  the  Old  Testament,"  by 
the  late  G.  H.  C.  Macgregor,  which  frankly  accepts 
many  of  the  critical  results,  such  as  that  "  prediction 
was  not  the  chief  function  of  the  prophet."  2  "  Where 
Scripture  is  silent,  we  should  be  very  careful  not  to 
make  the  word  of  God  responsible  for  our  traditional 
ascriptions."  3  "  The  framework  "  of  Judges  "  is  of 
much  later  date  than  the  theories  fitted  on  to  it."  4 
"  The  books  of  Samuel  are  undoubtedly  compila- 
tions." 5  Sometimes,  indeed,  elaborate  replies,  such 

1  p.  vii.  2  p.  66.  s  p.  74. 

4  p.  90.  5  p.  116. 


8      OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

as  "Lex  Mosaica,"  and  Green's  volume  on  "The 
Higher  Criticism  of  the  Pentateuch,"  are  written  on  the 
other  side.1  But  the  literary  enterprise  and  enthusiasm 
displayed  by  the  critical  school  is  nothing  short  of  re- 
markable. Slowly  but  surely  it  is  disarming  hostility 
and  forming  a  not  inconsiderable  body  of  public  opin- 
ion, so  much  so  that  a  reviewer  in  "  Bibliotheca  Sacra  "  2 
complains  that  "  the  results  of  the  destructive  critics 
cease  to  become  tentative  inferences,  and  appear  as 
dogmas,  which  the  reader  is  to  receive  on  the  strength 
of  a  new  tradition."  3 

Now  what  precisely  is  at  stake  in  this  controversy  ? 
What  are  the  interests  that  seem  to  be  disregarded, 
and  the  objects  that  seem  to  be  menaced  by  Higher 
Criticism  ?  (i)  In  the  first  place,  it  is  charged  with 
a  reckless  disregard  of  tradition,  a  tradition  which 
for  over  two  millennia  has  satisfied  the  Jewish  and 
the  Christian  Church.  A  not  unnatural  suspicion  is 
raised  by  the  demand  that  the  belief  of  many  cen- 
turies be  set  aside  by  the  work  of  several  decades. 
But  it  has  to  be  remembered  that  unless  for  a  spor- 
adic protest  here  and  there,  the  belief  of  the  centuries 
was  not  seriously  investigated  till  a  century  and  a 
half  ago.  An  unchallenged  tradition  has  no  more 
value  at  the  end  of  twenty  centuries  than  at  the  be- 

1  A  recent  editorial  in  the  "  Sunday  School  Times"  (Jan.  31,  1903) 
regretfully  admits  the  "  fact  that  now  exists,  to  the  shame  of  conser- 
vative biblical  scholars,  —  namely,  that  they  are  placing  before  the 
public  no  great  works  which  at  all  compare  in  elaborateness  aud  pains- 
staking  with  those  issued  by  their  opponents." 

2  January,  1902,  p.  199. 

8  This  is  a  real  danger  against  which  scholars  are  anxious  to  guard. 
See  the  chapter  on  the  "  Essence  of  Protestantism." 


THE    PRESENT    DISTRESS  9 

ginning,  and  its  value  then  is  precisely  the  thing  to 
be  investigated. 

(ii)  More  important,  however,  is  the  charge  that  the 
credibility  of  the  Bible  is  at  stake.  This  has  been 
thoroughly  dissipated,  it  is  urged,  by  current  critical 
processes.  The  Pentateuch  in  particular  has  suffered 
most  severely,  and  has  to  be  surrendered,  as  an  his- 
torical authority,  almost  in  its  entirety.  The  history 
which  it  contains  is  not  only  meagre  :  it  is  partly  im- 
aginary and  partly  false.  It  has  completely  inverted 
the  real  course  of  Israel's  religious  development.  The 
elaborated  law  is  not  a  product  of  the  earliest,  but  of 
the  latest,  times ;  it  belongs  not  to  Moses,  but  to  Juda- 
ism. The  professedly  historical  portions  are  largely 
a  mixture  of  myth  and  legend,  which  at  best  have  an 
historical  kernel.  The  mighty  patriarchs  of  the  early 
days  were  not  men  of  flesh  and  blood  at  all ;  they  are 
reduced  by  criticism  to  personifications  of  virtues,  or 
to  tribes,  or,  at  best,  to  tribal  heroes.  Much  of  what 
is  commonly  regarded  as  distinctive  of  the  Bible,  e.  g. 
the  theophanies,  seems  to  be  evaporated  by  critical 
processes.  The  books  which  have  been  supposed  to 
be,  if  not  contemporary  with  the  incidents  they  record, 
at  any  rate  very  early,  are  brought  down  to  so  late  a 
date  as  to  seem  to  invalidate,  or  at  least  to  weaken 
very  considerably  their  testimony  to  an  early  time.1 
Even  those  who  would  repudiate  the  strong  language 
of  a  certain  conservative  scholar  that  the  books  are, 
on  this  view,  "  a  conscious  and  painstaking  forgery," 

1  Barry,  "Some  Lights  of  Science  on  the  Faith,"  p.  280;  Breden- 
kamp,  "  Gesetz  und  Propheten,"  p.  173. 


io     OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

"  gangrened  with  fraud,"  l  yet  have  an  uneasy  feeling 
that  this  attitude  to  the  Bible  is  not  quite  compatible 
with  a  real  deference  to  its  authority. 

(iii)  The  critical  attitude  to  prophecy  has  also 
given  rise  to  much  apprehension.  It  is  often  con- 
ceived to  be  a  covert,  or  even  open  attack,  on  the 
predictive  power  of  the  prophets  ;  and,  as  predictive 
prophecy  was  for  long  considered  to  be  one  of  the 
chief  bulwarks  of  revealed  religion,  the  critical  atti- 
tude is  felt  to  be  a  direct  attack  on  the  essentials  of 
the  faith.  Not  only  prophecy  proper  is  thus  affected, 
but  naturally  also  the  predictive  parts  of  the  historical 
books :  any  promise,  e.  g.  to  Abraham,  that  his  pos- 
terity should  one  day  inherit  the  land,  is  the  later 
historian's  interpretation  of  a  contemporary  fact  — 
a  literary  device  justified  by  the  fact  that  God  sees 
the  end  from  the  beginning.'2  The  churches  hold  that, 
within  the  field  of  prophetic  prediction,  nothing  is  of 
such  vital  moment  as  Messianic  prophecy,  in  the  nar- 
rower sense  of  definite  predictions  bearing  directly  on 
the  life  and  sufferings  of  Christ ;  and  any  rejection 
of,  or  even  indifference  to,  the  predictive  element, 
appears  to  involve  an  inability  to  appreciate  this  cen- 
tral fact  of  revelation,  and  the  subtle  unity  that  binds 
Testament  to  Testament. 

(iv)  One  of  the  features  regarded  as  most  painful 
and  surprising  in  the  attitude  of  the  critics  to  Old 
Testament  questions  is  their  apparent  indifference  to 
the  explicit  language  of  the  New  Testament.  Many 

1  Kennedy,   "Old  Testament  Criticism  and  the  Rights   of    the 
Unlearned,"  pp.  62,  66. 

2  Fulliquet,  "  Les  experiences  religieuses,"  p.  15. 


THE    PRESENT   DISTRESS         11 

of  its  words  appear  to  put  beyond  all  reasonable  doubt 
the  authorship  of  particular  books  and  the  interpreta- 
tion of  particular  passages ;  yet  the  critic  discusses 
and  conjectures  and  concludes,  as  if  these  things  had 
for  him  no  existence.  Professor  Clemen,  one  of  the 
ablest  New  Testament  scholars  in  Germany,  roundly 
says  that  Paul's  interpretation  of  the  Old  Testament 
has  in  certain  of  its  applications  to  be  given  up.1 

(v)  But  the  most  distressing  surprise  of  all  is  the 
discovery  that  the  words  of  Christ  seem  to  meet  with 
no  more  deference  from  the  critics  than  the  other 
words  of  the  New  Testament.  The  authority  and 
finality  which  they  deny  to  the  New  Testament  in 
general,  they  deny  to  Him  in  particular.  Now  to  most 
minds  this  is  intolerable.  It  is  easy  to  see  that  a  very 
complex  Christological  question  is  raised  here  —  a 
question  affecting  both  the  nature  and  mission  of 
Christ.  But  it  is  maintained  by  the  opponents  of 
criticism  that  that  question  must  not  be  answered  by 
assuming  either  accommodation  or  ignorance  on  the 
part  of  Christ :  we  are  not  at  liberty  to  suppose  either 
that  He  did  not  know  or  that  He  deliberately  mis- 
stated what  He  knew.  If  then  He  must  have  known, 
and  if  He  expressed  an  opinion  on  those  subjects,  are 
we  not  bound  by  the  opinion  He  expressed?  The 
dilemma  is  a  grave  one,  seeming  as  it  does  to  affect 
the  authority  of  Christ. 

(vi)  The  fundamental  objection  to  the  newer  criti- 
cism, however,  it  is  argued,  is  that  it  seems  to  ignore, 
where  it  does  not  deny,  the  supernatural.  Its  watch- 
word is  evolution,  and  it  has  no  place  for  miracle. 

1  "  Studien  und  Kritiken,"  1902,  p.  187. 


12     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

Sometimes  the  obvious,  though  unexpressed,  assump- 
tion underlying  the  presentation  of  the  history  is  that 
miracles  are  impossible  ;  and  even  when  their  abstract 
possibility  is  conceded,  the  evidence  is  depreciated. 
Many  of  the  most  thrilling  sections  of  Old  Testament 
story,  e.  g.  the  story  of  Elijah,  are  thus  relegated  to 
the  domain  of  legend,  and  the  miraculous  elements 
involved  are  in  this  way  conveniently  got  rid  of. 
Thus  the  history  of  Israel  loses  precisely  the  very 
thing  that  has  often  been  regarded  as  peculiarly  dis- 
tinctive of  it,  and  Israel  appears  in  history  on  a  level 
with  the  other  peoples,  an  aspect  in  which  —  on  the 
testimony  of  her  literature  —  she  steadily  refused  to 
regard  herself.  "  The  new  criticism  is  found  to  be 
one  with  the  old  rationalism,"  and  it  is  felt  that  it  is 
only  a  question  of  time  till  the  supernatural  in  the 
New  Testament,  even  in  the  person  of  Christ,  will  be 
as  readily  denied  as  the  supernatural  in  the  Old  has 
been.  A  non-miraculous  Old  Testament  history  will 
issue  in  a  non-miraculous  Jesus ;  and  then  where  are 
we  ?  Christianity  will  then  be,  in  the  famous  phrase 
of  Kuenen,  but  one  of  the  principal  world  religions, 
"  nothing  less  and  nothing  more." 

(vii)  The  result  will  be  that  for  the  religious  man, 
no  authority  will  be  left ;  at  least,  not  the  authority 
which  the  Christian  counts  paramount.  For  a  Bible 
whose  history  is  largely  idealized  and  whose  prophecy 
is  not  predictive,  for  a  Bible  out  of  whose  every  page 
the  supernatural  seems  to  have  been  adroitly  elimi- 
nated, it  is  obvious  that  authority  can  no  longer  be 
claimed  in  the  old  sense  —  so  runs  the  argument  — 
nor  yet  can  it  be  claimed  for  a  Christ  who  shared  the 


THE    PRESENT    DISTRESS         13 

errors  of  His  contemporaries,  and  whose  knowledge, 
in  important  directions,  was  limited.  As  a  speaker 
bluntly  said  at  a  recent  meeting  in  Glasgow,  "  It 
is  impossible  to  believe  at  the  same  time  that  the 
Bible  is  a  book  of  blunders,  and  in  any  reasonable 
sense  the  word  of  God." 

(viii)  Meantime,  what  is  the  preacher  to  do  ?  His 
task  is  unspeakably  hard.  His  text-book  is  the  Bible, 
the  very  book  which  is  treated  in  so  cavalier  a  fashion, 
and  whose  plainest  statements  are  so  coolly  traversed 
by  the  men  who  are  giving  their  lives  to  the  study  of 
it.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  some,  in  their  intellectual 
suspense,  are  disposed  to 

"  Stay,  till  the  cloud  that  settles  round  his  birth 
Hath  lifted  but  a  little;  " 

and  that  others  are  disposed  to  wash  their  hands  of  a 
criticism  which  presumptuously  challenges  the  state- 
ments of  a  book  that  has  been  as  a  lamp  to  the  cen- 
turies, and  that  has  won  the  reverence  of  millions  ? 

All  these  sacred  interests,  then,  seem  to  be  im- 
perilled by  the  newer  criticism.  The  situation  can 
be  concretely  illustrated  by  two  recent  episodes  in 
America  and  Germany.  A  Methodist  Episcopal  Pro- 
fessor, holding  the  chair  of  English  Literature  in  a 
University  in  the  United  States,  created  a  great  sen- 
sation, not  only  in  his  own  church,  but  far  beyond,  by 
a  publication  in  which  he  freely  discussed,  among 
other  things,  the  question  of  legend  in  the  Bible, 
maintaining,  with  reference  to  such  stories  as  those 
of  Elijah,  Elisha,  and  the  men  in  the  fiery  furnace, 
that  some  of  them  were  crude  and  childish,  others 


i4     OLD    TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

pathetic  and  sublime,  but  that  they  are  all  alike 
legendary  and  not  historic.  He  frankly  maintained 
that  it  was  impossible  to  draw  any  dividing  line 
between  the  miracles  of  the  Old  Testament  and 
those  of  the  New. 

A  German  Professor,1  whose  criticism  is  by  no 
means  radical,  and  whose  interests  are  essentially 
constructive,  had  published  an  article  on  the  criticism 
of  the  Old  Testament.  It  was  severely  criticised  in 
the  "  Magazine  for  evangelical  Lutheran  pastors  "  in 
Bavaria,  the  following  being  the  chief  points  of  the 
indictment,  (a)  The  Professor  was  said  to  be  putting 
a  powerful  weapon  into  the  hands  of  the  critics  on  the 
left  wing,  (b)  He  seemed  to  attach  no  credibility  to 
the  Biblical  sources  for  the  times  of  Moses,  (c)  An 
honest  minister,  who  believed  in  the  Professor's  posi- 
tion, could  no  longer  represent  the  creation,  the  fall, 
etc.,  as  historical,  (d)  People  will  never  learn  to  dis- 
tinguish the  religious  value  of  a  narrative  from  its  his- 
torical credibility  :  they  will  say,  "  What  is  not  true, 
does  not  concern  me."  (e)  Indifference  to  the  histo- 
ricity of  the  Old  Testament  will  be  transferred  to  the 
New.  (f)  The  whole  position  will  lead  not  only  to 
contempt  for  the  Old  Testament,  but  to  the  renuncia- 
tion of  Christ  and  of  all  moral  authority.  "  If  the 
curse  is  only  a  voice  from  the  realm  of  fable,  redemp- 
tion from  the  curse  will  be  held  of  no  account."  Of 
course,  Professor  Kohler  was  astonished  at  this  criti- 
cism, and  denied  the  justice  of  it ;  but  it  shows  the 
almost  fierce  interest  that  is  taken  in  such  discus- 

1  Kohler,  "  Ueber  Berechtigung  der  Kritik  des  Alteu  Testamentes," 
pp.  52-55. 


THE    PRESENT    DISTRESS         15 

sions  by  those  engaged  in  the  active  ministry,  and 
the  seriousness  with  which  they  regard  the  issues  at 
stake. 

It  would  be  futile  to  underestimate  the  significance 
of  a  movement  which  is  raising  such  protests  in 
widely  different  parts  of  the  world.  At  the  same 
time,  some  of  the  facts  —  especially  the  literary  facts 
—  making  for  the  critical  position  are  so  incontrovert- 
ible, that  large  concessions  are  sometimes  made  even 
by  the  keenest  opponents  of  that  position  as  a  whole. 
"  No  one  denies,"  we  are  told,1  "  that  many  of  the 
books  are  in  the  nature  of  compilations.  .  .  .  No  one 
doubts  that  in  the  Old  Testament,  as  we  now  have  it, 
there  are  here  and  there  omissions,  repetitions,  unau- 
thorized additions,  glosses,  corruptions,  and  falsifica- 
tions of  the  text."  Bishop  Ellicott  admits  distinct 
sources  at  least  for  the  Book  of  Genesis,2  and  concedes 
"  that  the  narrative  of  the  Old  Testament  has  obvi- 
ously passed  through  the  hands  of  a  few  successive 
editors,  and  that  it  would  be  simply  contrary  to  all 
experience  not  to  find  that  such  procedures  had  im- 
ported some  amount  of  divergences  and  inconsist- 
encies."3 Mr.  G.  T.  Smith,  too,  enumerates  among 
the  concessions 4  the  use  of  different  documents  in  the 
Book  of  Genesis,  and  the  existence  of  explanatory 
marginal  notes  which  have  crept  into  the  text.  Ac- 
cording to  Hopfl,  a  Roman  Catholic  scholar,  it  may  be 

1  Blomfield,  "  The  Old  Testament  and  the  New  Criticism,"  pp. 
94,  95. 

2  "  Christus    Comprobator,"  p.  70.     So  H.  A.  Johnston,  "  Bible 
Criticism  and  the  Average  Man,"  pp.  83,  89. 

3  p.  77. 

*  "  Critique  on  Higher  Criticism,"  p.  43. 


16     OLD    TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

conceded  that  there  are  documentary  sources  in  Gen- 
esis;1 that  there  are  linguistic  reasons  against  at- 
tributing to  David  some  of  the  seventy-three  Psalms 
bearing  his  name ; 2  that  the  estimate  of  the  number 
of  Israelites  at  the  exodus,  capable  of  bearing  arms, 
at  600,000  is  too  high  ;3  that  in  later  times  new  laws 
not  only  may  have  been,  but  actually  were,  incorpo- 
rated in  the  original  Mosaic  code,4  —  this  is  a  great 
concession,  and  would  carry  any  one  who  makes  it  a 
long  way ;  that  a  development,  an  advance,  did  ac- 
tually take  place  in  the  religious  conceptions  of 
Israel.5  Very  significant  is  his  concession6  relative 
to  Messianic  prophecy,  that  "  many  predictions  which 
count  as  Messianic,  and  are  interpreted  by  the  evan- 
gelists of  Christ,  refer  primarily  to  other  events,  to 
future  fortunes  of  the  Israelitish  people."  Principal 
Cave  remarks, "  The  composite  structure  of  Genesis 
I  hold  to  be  proved." 7  Dr.  Green's  successor  in 
Princeton  asserts  that  "  this  [i.  e.  the  Old  Testament 
department]  is  quite  ready  to  admit  the  possibility,  or 

1  "Die  hohere  Bibelkritik,"  p.  31. 

2  p.  43.     So  Rev.  Alexander  Wright,  who  believes  that  twenty  out 
of  the  seventy-three  psalms  ascribed  to  David  may  be  rescued  for  him, 
yet  admits  that  he  has  "  been  compelled  to  abandon  belief  in  the  trust- 
worthiness of  the  titles  prefixed  to  the  psalms,  as  a  whole."     "  The 
Psalms  of  David  and  the  Higher  Criticism,"  p.  ix. 

8  p.  53.  4  p.  56.  5  p.  60. 

«  p.  101.  Professor  Volck,  "  Heilige  Schrift  und  Kritik,"  pp.  83- 
90,  admits  the  composite  and  non-Mosaic  authorship  of  the  Hexateuch, 
the  exilic  authorship  of  Isaiah  xl.-lxvi.,  the  unreliability  of  the  super- 
scriptions of  the  Psalms,  and  a  late  date  for  Daniel  in  its  present  form. 
"  That  various  sources  lie  at  the  basis  of  the  Pentateuch  no  one  can 
deny  who  without  prejudice  abandons  himself  to  the  impression  which 
the  history  makes  upon  the  reader."  p.  83. 

7  "  The  Battle  of  the  Standpoints,"  p.  33. 


THE    PRESENT    DISTRESS         17 

even  the  probability,  of  occasional  duplicates  in  the 
Pentateuch."  * 

The  appeal  is  often  made  to  Sayce ;  then  to  Sayce 
let  us  go.2  He  assures  us  that  "  modern  research  has 
shown  that  a  considerable  part  of  the  most  ancient 
literature  of  all  nations  was  of  composite  origin,  more 
especially  where  it  was  of  a  historical  or  a  religious 
character.  .  .  .  The  most  ancient  books  that  have 
come  down  to  us  are,  with  few  exceptions,  essentially 
compilations."  3  "  About  the  general  fact  of  the  com- 
posite character  of  the  Pentateuch  competent  critics 
of  all  schools  are  now  agreed."  4  He  further  assures 
us  that  "  there  are  narratives  and  statements  in  the 
Old  Testament  as  to  which  the  scepticism  of  the  critic 

1  "The  Presbyterian  and  Reformed  Review,"  April,  1902,  p.  193. 
"  But  there  is  no  basis,"  he  subsequently  adds,  "  for  a  belief  that  dupli- 
cation is  characteristic  and  prevalent." 

8  Archaeological  results  are  often  represented  as  making  for  the 
traditional  view  of  the  Bible,  and  against'  the  critical.  Such  a  repre- 
sentation is  quite  misleading.  See  Driver's  very  careful  estimate  in  his 
Essay  on  "  Hebrew  Authority  "  in  Hogarth's  "  Authority  and  Archae- 
ology, Sacred  and  Profane ;  "  and  cf.  Peters'  well-balanced  summary, 
"  The  Old  Testament  and  the  New  Scholarship,"  p.  245.  "  Hebrew  his- 
tory as  recorded  in  those  books  [«'.  e.  Samuel,  Kings,  and  the  Prophets] 
is  proved  by  the  comparison  [i.  e.  with  Assyrian,  Babylonian,  and  Per- 
sian records]  to  be  honest  and  trustworthy,  but  not  infallible,  as,  for 
instance,  in  the  matter  of  chronology,  nor  altogether  without  bias,  and 
a  natural  inclination  toward  a  patriotic  coloring  of  the  story.  Chron- 
icles, on  the  other  hand,  is  shown  to  be  of  little  or  no  value  for 
purposes  of  political  history,  while  Esther,  Daniel,  and  Jonah,  once 
supposed  to  be  historical,  are  made  to  appear  fictitious."  Cf.  also 
p.  253.  "  The  [Egyptian]  monuments  do  not  necessarily  contradict  the 
Hebrew  records  as  to  the  earlier  periods,  but  neither  can  we  say  with 
any  certainty  that  they  support  the  Bible  narrative.  This  I  say,  in 
deprecation  of  the  statements,  published  from  time  to  time,  that  archae- 
ology has  proved  the  truth  of  the  Bible  story." 

8  "  The  Higher  Criticism  and  the  Monuments,"  p.  3. 

*  p.  31. 

2  . 


i8     OLD    TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

has  been  shown  to  be  justified.  The  judgment  he  has 
passed  on  the  so-called  historical  chapters  of  the  Book 
of  Daniel  has  been  abundantly  verified  by  the  recent 
discoveries  of  Assyriology." 1  "The  'higher'  criti- 
cism of  the  Old  Testament  has  been  justified  in  its 
literary  analysis  of  the  Books  of  Moses."  2  He  fur- 
ther assures  us  of  a  "  constant  exaggeration  of  numbers 
on  the  part  of  the  Chronicler."  "  He  [i.  e.  the  Chron- 
icler] cared  as  little  for  history  in  the  modern  Euro- 
pean sense  of  the  word  as  the  Oriental  of  to-day,  who 
considers  himself  at  liberty  to  embellish  or  modify  the 
narrative  he  is  repeating  in  accordance  with  his  fancy 
or  the  moral  he  wishes  to  draw  from  it."  3  "  Oriental 
archaeology  makes  it  clear  that  his  statements  are  not 
always  exact.  We  cannot  follow  him  with  the  same 
confidence  as  that  with  which  we  should  follow  the 
author  of  the  Books  of  Kings.  His  use  of  the  docu- 
ments which  lay  before  him  was  uncritical ;  the  infer- 
ences he  drew  from  his  materials  were  not  always 
sound,  and  he  makes  them  subserve  the  theory  on 
which  his  work  is  based."4 

Doubtless  some  of  the  most  important  features 
of  the  Higher  Criticism,  as  enumerated  above,  are 
not  touched  by  these  concessions ;  but  there  can  be 
no  denying  that,  so  far  as  they  go,  they  are  very 
substantial. 

Still,  in  spite  of  these  concessions,  it  is  notorious 
that  criticism  as  a  whole  has  roused,  and  is  rousing,  a 

1  "  The  Higher  Criticism  and  the  Monuments,"  p.  27. 

2  p.  34.  8  p.  464. 

4  pp.  462,  463.  The  Chronicler,  e.  g.,  erroneously  infers  from  Kings 
that  Pul  and  Tiglath-pileser,  whose  name  he  misspells,  were  different 
persons.  1  Chr.  v.  26. 


THE    PRESENT    DISTRESS          19 

very  widespread  opposition.  Why  is  this  ?  and  how- 
far  is  it  justified  ?  In  the  first  place,  the  very  words 
Higher  Criticism  are  odious  to  many,  because  of  what 
they  seem  to  involve.  To  not  a  few,  Biblical  criticism 
of  any  kind  is  practically  synonymous  with  impiety : 
what  is  man  that  he  should  dare  to  criticise  the  word 
of  God  ?  And  "  higher"  suggests  presumption.  The 
term  is  no  douljt  unfortunate,  but  fair  minds  should 
not  allow  the  term  to  create  an  initial  prejudice  against 
the  process  for  which  the  term  stands.  Criticism  is 
not  destruction.  It  is  judgment :  it  is  the  effort  of 
the  mind  to  understand  and  relate  the  facts.  Higher 
Criticism  is  —  very  briefly  and  roughly  put  —  the 
criticism  of  the  contents  and  all  that  they  involve,  as 
opposed  to  Lower  Criticism,  which  is  the  criticism  of 
the  text. 

But  even  when  the  prejudice  against  the  name 
Higher  Criticism  is  overcome,  .there  is  enough,  it  is 
urged,  in  even  a  superficial  study  of  its  nature  and 
tendencies,  to  provoke  distrust.  Its  supporters  admit 
that  it  is  u  an  extremely  intricate,  complex,  and  elabo- 
rate intellectual  procedure." l  The  nomenclature  is 
pronounced  repellent.  To  designate  the  imaginary 
authors  of  the  Pentateuch  by  unattractive  algebraic 
symbols,  J1,  E2,  P2,  etc.,  is,  besides  being  gratuitous 
folly,  a  mockery  and  an  impiety.  The  author  of 
articles  on  "The  Old  Testament  and  the  Christian 
Church"  in  the  "  Evangelical  Lutheran  Church  News  " 
affirms  that  J,  E,  D,  and  P  are  figures  without  flesh 
and  blood.  Professor  Kautzsch  points  out  that  some 

1  Rev.  W.  H.  Hazard,  in  Gibson's  "  Reasons  for  the  Higher  Criti- 
cism of  the  Hexateuch,"  p.  7., 


20     OLD   TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

of  his  remarks  betray  absolute  ignorance  of  the  more 
recent  Pentateuchal  criticism,  "  and  the  reader  who 
understands  somewhat  more  of  it,  finds  it  now  quite 
intelligible  why  and  in  what  sense  J,  E,  D,  and  P  are 
'  figures  without  flesh  and  blood '  for  the  writer  of  the 
articles." l 

Other  charges  of  a  more  serious  nature  are  urged. 
It  is  pointed  out  that  criticism  often  assumes  a  flip- 
pant and  irreverent  tone ;  that  it  has  no  sense  of  the 
dignity  of  the  great  themes  on  which  it  lays  unholy 
hands ;  that  it  does  not  even  know  its  own  mind  - 
witness  the  notorious  discrepancies  among  the  critics 
themselves.  It  is  marred  from  beginning  to  end  by 
subjective  considerations,  and  by  presuppositions, 
which  beg  the  whole  question  in  advance.  Its  argu- 
ments are  strained  and  unconvincing.  The  reasoning 
even  of  the  scholars  who  are  regarded  as  the  most 
reverent  and  cautious  will  often  not  commend  them- 
selves to  ordinary  minds.2  The  references  frequently 
fail  to  support  the  conclusions  drawn  from  them. 
The  bolder  spirits,  at  any  rate,  are  as  unreasonably 
dogmatic  as  the  traditionalists  whom  they  condemn 
and  seek  to  displace ;  while  the  more  cautious  be- 
sprinkle their  pages  with  a  profusion  of  u  perhaps, 

1  Kautzsch,  "  Bibelwissenschaft  und  Religionsunterricht,"  pp.  10, 
11.     Cf.  Blomfield,  "  The  Old  Testament  and   the  New  Criticism," 
p.  55.     "  These  documents  are  so  frequently  spoken  of  as  though  they 
had  a  real,  substantial  existence,  like  the  acknowledged  works  of  well- 
known  authors,  that  it  is  well  to  remind  ourselves,  once  for  all,  that, 
as  distinct  entities,  they  exist  only  in  the  speculations  of  German  or 
Dutch  scholars  and  their  English  followers,  having  no  atom  of  proof 
except  that  which  is  derived  from  what  is  called  '  internal  evidence/ 
i.  e.  the  examination  of  the  books  themselves." 

2  Blomfield,  "  The  Old  Testament  and  the  New  Criticism,"  p.  8. 


THE    PRESENT   DISTRESS         11 

possibly,  probably,  very  likely,  no  doubt,"  etc.,  which 
is  provoking  to  one  who  has  been  accustomed  to  find 
in  the  Bible  nothing  but  infallible  certainties  from 
beginning  to  end.  The  critics,  it  is  maintained,  are 
tactless :  they  spring  their  most  ungrounded  specula- 
tions on  innocent  and  unsuspecting  minds,  discuss  the 
Bible  with  a  freedom  which  perplexes  and  confuses 
those  who  simply  trust  its  every  word,  and  entirely 
disintegrate  the  moral  and  religious  beliefs  of  large 
numbers  of  well-meaning  people,  so  that  one  is  hardly 
surprised  at  Talmage's  demand  that  "  the  critics  of 
the  Bible  go  clear  over,  where  they  belong,  to  the 
devil's  side."  This  tactlessness  is  only  another  side, 
it  is  urged,  of  the  general  indifference  of  the  critics 
to  the  welfare  of  the  Church.  They  are  willing  to 
speculate  ;  but  they  will  not  stand  in  the  fighting  line. 
They  do  not  know  how  sore  the  battle  is ;  and  so  they 
not  only  do  not  help,  but,  by  their  speculations,  they 
hinder. 

This  last  charge  cannot  with  any  fairness  be  urged 
against  the  critics  of  the  English-speaking  world. 
Professor  Henry  Drummond  was  not  an  Old  Testa- 
ment critic,  but  he  was  in  the  profoundest  sympathy 
with  the  whole  movement  of  which  this  is  a  part,  and 
the  world  will  not  readily  forget  his  intimate  asso- 
ciation with  Mr.  Moody  in  work  that  was  distinctly 
evangelical.  Nor  can  any  one  be  blind  to  the  very  con- 
spicuous services  of  Professor  George  Adam  Smith, 
in  making  large  and  unfamiliar  tracts  of  the  Bible 
live  and  throb,  as,  to  the  ordinary  student  and  pastor, 
they  had  never  done  before.  One  of  the  best  known 
supporters  of  the  critical  movement  in  America  has 


22     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

for  years  contributed  weekly  a  column  to  the  "  Sun- 
day School  Times,"  which  is  regarded  by  many  read- 
ers, who  are  quite  innocent  of  criticism,  as  one  of  the 
strongest  features  of  the  paper.  The  fact  that  the 
critic  may  dearly  love  the  church  of  Christ,  and  work 
with  all  his  heart  and  mind  for  her  welfare,  is  almost 
too  obvious  to  need  elaboration.  Indeed,  by  the  very 
intimate  relation  that  subsists,  for  the  most  part, 
throughout  the  English-speaking  world,  between  the 
churches  and  their  theological  colleges  or  seminaries, 
the  breach  between  the  Professor  and  the  pastor  is 
never  likely  to  be  a  very  wide  one.  It  is  different  in 
Germany,  where  the  theological  professor  has  seldom 
been  a  pastor,  and  where  he  sustains  practically  no  for- 
mal relation  to  the  activities  of  the  Church.  There 
theology  is  more  likely  to  be  studied  as  a  pure  science. 
The  gain  is  that  theology  learns  to  come  to  terms 
with  the  other  sciences;  the  loss  frequently  is  that 
the  most  essential  factor  in  theological  investigation 
is  ignored.  The  isolation  of  theology  from  the  life  of 
the  Church  is  even  more  fatal  than  her  isolation  from 
the  sister  sciences,  because  the  Bible  is  related  to  the 
life  and  faith  of  the  Church.  It  originally  expressed 
that  faith ;  now  it  nourishes  and  supports  it :  so  that 
a  coldly  scientific  attitude  to  the  Bible  which  ignores 
its  inseparable  relation  to  the  life  of  the  Church  is  a 
manifest  injustice.  But  the  point  is  that  that  injus- 
tice is  little  likely  to  be  done  the  Bible  by  English 
and  American  scholarship.  The  theological  Profes- 
sor has  often  been  —  in  many  churches  has  almost 
always  been  —  a  preacher.  In  any  case,  he  is  usually 
in  direct  contact  with  the  life  and  movements  of  the 


THE    PRESENT    DISTRESS         23 

Church,  and  he  has  at  heart  the  things  that  concern 
her  peace.  Tactlessness  there  may  be  among  the 
critics,  as  among  other  men,  but  not  indifference  to 
the  cause  of  Christ  and  His  Church.  Indeed,  it  is 
admitted  by  the  fairer  opponents  of  criticism  that 
many  of  its  representatives  are  men  of  high  character 
and  reverent  spirit.  "  They  are  not  writing  against 
miracles,  against  prophecy,  or  even  against  inspira- 
tion. They  are  simply  attempting  to  adjust  what 
they  hold  on  critical  grounds  with  what  they  believe 
as  Christians."  l  "  Perhaps,"  the  author  just  quoted 
says  elsewhere,2  "  we  have  been  in  too  great  haste  to 
condemn  others,  as  if  they  were  almost  infidels,  for 
holding  views  which  they  believe  to  be  consistent  with 
faith  in  Christ."  It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  the 
critics  are  concerned  only  with  finical  and  irrelevant 
literary  problems,  or  are  interested  in  depreciating 
revelation  and  disturbing  faith.  Some  of  the  greatest 
of  them  have  repeatedly  confessed  that  the  aim  of  all 
their  critical  work  has  been  to  bring  into  clearer  light 
the  beauty  and  power  of  the  Divine  Word.  Critical 
discussion  is  justified  only  as  it  contributes  to  that  end. 
The  latest,  most  brilliant,  and  enthusiastic  commentary 
on  Genesis,  by  Professor  Gunkel  of  Berlin,  professedly 
keeps  in  view  throughout  the  needs  of  the  men  en- 
gaged in  the  ministry.  Professor  Kautzsch  of  Halle, 
in  a  public  address  delivered  in  June,  1900,  before  the 
Evangelical  Union  of  the  Province  of  Saxony,  ex- 
pressly laid  down  as  one  of  his  theses  that  "  Biblical 
criticism  is  never  an  end  in  itself,  but  always  only  a 
means  to  an  end  "  —  the  end  being  the  understanding 

1  Girdlestone,  "  Doctor  Doctorum,"  p.  157.  2  p.  186. 


24     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

either  of  the  contents  of  Scripture  in  detail,  or  of  the 
history  of  revelation  as  a  whole. 

Whatever  the  deficiencies  of  individual  critics  may 
be,  it  is  at  least  clear  that  their  general  attitude  is 
quite  compatible  with  a  reverent  appreciation  of  the 
Bible  as  a  revelation  of  God,  and  with  a  deep  desire 
to  further  the  interests  of  the  Church  of  Christ,  by 
presenting  the  positive  religious  truth  of  the  Bible. 
Granted.  But  how  may  that  general  attitude  be  more 
particularly  defined  ?  Every  man  who  desires  to  have  a 
just  and  intelligent  opinion  will  have  to  discover  this 
by  independent  study :  he  must,  so  far  as  he  has  oppor- 
tunity, master  the  critical  argument  for  himself,  and 
not  trust  to  the  representations  of  its  opponents.  But 
to  those  who  have  no  time  or  taste  for  such  study  it 
will  be  instructive  to  listen  to  the  calm  words  of  one 
of  England's  most  accomplished,  courteous,  and  fair- 
minded  scholars :  "  It  is  impossible  to  resist  the  im- 
pression that  the  critical  argument  is  in  the  stronger 
hands,  and  that  it  is  accompanied  by  a  far  greater  com- 
mand of  the  materials.  The  cause  of  criticism,  if  we 
take  the  word  in  a  wide  sense  and  do  not  identify  it  too 
closely  with  any  particular  theory,  is,  it  is  difficult  to 
doubt,  the  winning  cause.  Indeed  criticism  is  only 
the  process  by  which  theological  knowledge  is  brought 
into  line  with  other  knowledge ;  and  as  such  it  is 
inevitable." 1  Again,  "  the  human  mind  will  in  the 
end  accept  that  theory  which  covers  the  greatest  num- 
ber of  particular  facts  and  harmonizes  best  with  the 
sum  total  of  knowledge."  2 

1  Sanday,  "Inspiration,"  p.  116. 

2  p,  215,    Delitzsch,  after  defending  the  traditional  views  of  the 


THE    PRESENT    DISTRESS         25 

But  to  say  that  the  method  is  right  is  not  to  say- 
that  it  always  leads  to  definite  and  unassailable 
results.  The  facts  are  so  comparatively  few  and 
often  so  difficult  to  co-ordinate,  that  the  interpretation 
of  them  will  —  in  some  cases  for  long,  and  in  a  few 
cases  perhaps  for  ever  —  be  nothing  more  than  pro- 
visional. But  to  admit  that  is  not  to  admit  the  inva- 
lidity of  the  method.  In  spite  of  numerous  differences 
among  the  critics  themselves,  an  astonishing  unanimity 
has  been  reached  in  the  solution  of  many  problems, 
including  some  of  the  most  intricate,  e.g.  the  analysis 
of  the  Hexateuch ;  and  this  is  conceded  even  by  op- 
ponents. It  cannot  be  too  strongly  emphasized  that 
criticism  does  not  stand  for  a  definite  set  of  results. 
It  stands  for  a  method,  an  attitude,  a  temper  —  the 
temper  which  patiently  collects  and  impartially  ex- 
amines all  the  available  facts,  and  allows  them  to 
make  their  own  impression  upon  the  mind  of  the 
investigator. 

Now,  scientific  investigation  in  any  department  of 
knowledge  is  never  an  easy  thing.  To  understand  the 
processes  by  which  its  results  are  reached  demands 
time,  sympathy,  perseverance,  and  patience.  The 
results  cannot  be  fairly  criticised  apart  from  the  pro- 
cesses by  which  they  are  reached  ;  and  any  man  who 
fails  to  bring  to  the  investigation  the  qualities  enu- 
merated may  find  the  processes  unattractive  enough  ; 
but  he  must  not  call  them  ridiculous  because  he  has 
not  been  at  the  pains  to  understand  them.  No  one 

Old  Testament  for  the  best  part  of  his  life  with  extraordinary  learn- 
ing, vigor,  and  acuteuess,  finally  adopted  all  the  main  points  of  the 
critical  position.  The  concessions  of  such  a  man  are  hardly  to  be 
overestimated. 


26     OLD   TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

expects  the  working  minister  to  be  familiar  with  the 
elaborate  details  of  critical  processes :  that  is  the 
labor  of  a  lifetime.  It  is  easy  to  ridicule  the  Poly- 
chrome Bible,  or  the  "  rainbow"  Bible,  as  it  is  deris- 
ively called ;  but  such  a  Bible  was  never  intended  to 
be  a  people's  Bible.  To  suppose  this,  as  the  editor  of 
a  new  German  translation  of  the  Bible  points  out,  is 
to  betray  a  considerable  degree  of  thoughtlessness. 
Such  a  Bible,  he  reminds  us,  is  designed  to  satisfy  the 
scientific  needs  of  theologians,  and  also  of  the  more 
educated  laity.  But  "  the  folly  of  giving  out  this 
work  for  a  people's  Bible  never  entered  any  of  our 
heads."1 

This  distinction,  then,  must  be  carefully  borne  in 
mind.  The  critical  processes  are  for  those  who  have 
time  and  inclination  to  investigate,  though  in  outline 
they  may  be  easily  followed  by  any  intelligent  man ; 
but  most  religious  men  will  have  to  do  only  with  the 
results.  The  teacher  is  justified  in  endeavoring  to 
initiate  his  students  into  the  processes  by  which  he 
reaches  the  results  on  which  he  builds :  whether  he 
will  actually  do  so  or  not,  will  depend  partly  on  local 
circumstances,  partly  on  the  time  at  his  disposal,  and 
on  other  considerations.  But  the  preacher  is  —  shall 
we  say,  bound  —  to  ignore  these  processes  in  his  pub- 
lic work ;  bound  by  his  common  sense  and  by  the 

1  "  Studien  und  Kritiken,"  1901,  p.  682.  The  Rev.  John  Urqu- 
hart's  pamphlet  on  "  The  Coming  Bible  "  (published  at  Cambuslang, 
Scotland),  with  its  colored  two-page  illustration  from  Leviticus,  and  its 
allusions  to  "  forgery,"  etc.,  will  only  startle  those  who  do  not  really 
understand  critical  methods  (cf.  Chapter  VI.),  and  who  forget  that  this 
is  a  Bible  not  for  popular  use,  but  for  the  scientific  study  of  the  Old 
Testament. 


THE   PRESENT    DISTRESS          27 

nature  of  his  calling.  And  to  say  this  is  not  to  admit 
that  there  is  an  exoteric  and  an  esoteric  teaching :  one 
for  the  class-room  and  another  for  the  Church.  The 
pulpit  does  not  exist  for  the  exhibition  of  critical 
method.  The  preacher's  business  is  to  call  men  to 
God,  by  the  presentation  of  positive,  compelling 
truth,  especially  of  the  Truth  incarnate ;  and  he  is 
bound,  by  the  nature  of  his  solemn  office,  to  do  so,  as 
far  as  in  him  lies,  without  causing  one  of  the  little 
ones  before  him  to  stumble.  His  sense  of  perspec- 
tive and  of  the  proprieties,  to  say  nothing  of  his  high 
calling,  should  preserve  him  from  the  folly  of  present- 
ing irrelevant  or  confusing  facts  to  the  needy  souls 
who  look  to  him  for  help.  These  facts  may  be  rele- 
vant to  his  work  as  a  thorough  student  of  Scripture, 
but  not  to  his  function  as  a  preacher  of  God  and  an 
ambassador  of  Christ.  In  that  capacity  he  will  be 
"  too  full  of  the  awe  of  direct  vision  to  lose  himself  in 
the  arid  wastes  of  criticism,  or  to  be  led  astray  by 
the  pedantries  of  scientific  investigation."  l 

The  true  Biblical  critic  will  always  remember  that 
the  minister's  task  is  everywhere  already  a  hard 
enough  one,  and  that  what  he  needs  is  to  be  strength- 
ened, not  confused.  He  will  be  thankful  for  the 
truth  that  will  preach.  It  is  a  cheap  sarcasm  to  say, 
as  some  one  has  said,  that  what  we  need  is  not  bread- 
knives,  but  bread.  We  need  both  if  we  are  to  dine 
like  civilized  men.  Still  there  is  some  truth  in  the 
sarcasm,  as  we  can  live  by  bread  alone,  but  not  by 

1  Beard,  "The  Hibbert  Lectures,"  1883,  p.  430.  These  words, 
relatively  severe,  are  thoroughly  appropriate  as  against  the  critic  who 
forgets  that  criticism  is  only  a  means. 


28     OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

knives  alone.  The  Biblical  critic,  if  he  is  to  do  his 
work  well,  must  remember  that  he  is  a  servant  of 
Christ  far  more  than  of  his  methods,  and  that  his 
work  upon  the  Bible  is  essentially  work  for  the 
Church.  He  will  therefore  avoid  all  that  is  sensa- 
tional and  that  would  give  needless  offence.  He  will 
not  be  dogmatic  where  the  evidence  is  uncertain.  He 
will  not  allow  his  inferences  to  run  ahead  of  his  facts. 
In  this  sense  he  will  be  a  "  safe "  man  —  a  word 
much  abused  in  this  connection,  for  it  usually  denotes 
a  man  who  contrives  to  keep  in  line  with  conventional 
belief.  But  such  a  man  is  no  more  safe  than  the 
man  who  opposes  convention  for  opposition's  sake. 
The  only  really  "  safe  "  man  is  the  man  who  loves  the 
truth  and  the  brethren,  and  who  is  prepared  to  go 
wherever  the  truth  leads  him.  We  often  hear,  too, 
of  certain  men  as  "  advanced,"  "  going  too  far,"  etc. 
In  the  sense  in  which  the  phrase  is  intended  it  is, 
strictly  speaking,  a  meaningless  one.  If  the  method 
be  wrong,  to  go  any  way  with  it  is  a  mistake ;  if  it  be 
right,  we  cannot  go  too  far.  Sound  criticism,  like 
Aristotle's  virtue,  is  a  mean :  you  cannot  have  too 
much  of  it.  Where  it  is  defective,  let  it  be  corrected, 
not  by  abuse,  but  by  a  sounder  and  more  penetrating 
criticism,  which  will  call  attention  to  factors  ignored 
or  exaggerated. 

If  this  be  so  —  if  the  critic  have  a  passion  for  truth, 
if  he  have  a  touch  of  the  prophet,  if  he  love  the 
Church  and  live  for  her  life  —  the  gulf  between  criti- 
cism and  the  Church  is  not  impassable,  nor  even  wide. 
Indeed  it  is  being  bridged  over  in  our  day,  and  that 
not  only  on  the  confession  of  scholars,  with  whom  the 


THE   PRESENT   DISTRESS         29 

wish  might  be  supposed  to  be  father  to  the  thought, 
but  also  on  that  of  the  men  who  are  themselves  in  the 
thick  of  the  fight.  Let  us  first  hear  the  scholars. 
Professor  B.  W.  Bacon  asserts  the  "  firm  confidence 
that  a  general  acquaintance  with  the  discoveries 
claimed  to  have  been  made  by  the  higher  criticism  in 
the  Pentateuch  can  only  conduce  to  the  lasting  bene- 
fit of  His  cause,  who  said,  '  Thy  word  is  Truth.'  "  * 
Professor  G.  F.  Moore  remarks  that  the  apprehension 
of  the  consequences  to  which  the  results  of  criticism 
should  give  rise,  if  they  were  generally  accepted,  is 
groundless.  "  That  a  better  understanding  of  the  way 
in  which  God  has  revealed  Himself  in  the  history  of 
the  true  religion,  whose  early  chapters  are  written  in 
the  Old  Testament,  will  diminish  men's  faith  in  reli- 
gion or  the  Scripture,  or  their  reverence  for  them,  is 
no  less  unreasonable  than  to  suppose  that  better 
knowledge  of  Astronomy  or  Geology  must  impair 
faith  in  the  God  of  Heaven  and  Earth."  2  "I  cannot 
help  thinking,"  says  Professor  Sanday,  "that  the 
critical  and  historical  way  of  looking  at  the  Bible  is 
calculated  to  win  back  some  of  its  inspiring  power."  3 
And  elsewhere,  "The  proper  fruit  of  criticism  and 
history  "  is  a  "  vital  appreciation  of  the  real  funda- 
mentals of  Christianity."4  To  those  who  feel  that 
some  of  his  results  "  threaten  their  faith  in  the  Scrip- 
tures," Professor  H.  G.  Mitchell  gives  the  assurance 
that  "  their  anxiety  is  groundless,"  and  assigns  his 
reasons.5  The  case  is  put  still  more  strongly  by  a 

1  Bacon,  "  The  Genesis  of  Genesis,"  p.  xiii. 

*  Id.  p.  xxx. 

8  "  Oracles  of  God,"  p.  87.  *  p.  88. 

5  "  The  World  before  Abraham,"  p.  IT. 


30     OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

French  Roman  Catholic  scholar.  "The  danger  at 
the  present  hour  is  not  that  of  advancing  on  the  path 
of  science :  it  is  that  of  standing  still,  denying  the 
movement  which  is  accomplished  and  accomplishing 
itself  round  about  us." l 

Now  let  us  hear  the  testimony  of  two  clergymen, 
distinguished  members  of  different  communions. 
From  Canon  Henson  we  have  the  following  confes- 
sion, delivered  in  the  course  of  a  sermon  in  Westmin- 
ster Abbey :  "  These  far-reaching  and  at  first  sight 
alarming  changes  worked  by  criticism  in  our  whole 
view  and  treatment  of  the  Scriptures  will,  I  believe, 
be  found  to  minister  to  religious  peace,  for  the  old 
springs  of  exasperation  and  conflict  are  now  cut  off." 
Dr.  R.  F.  Horton  asserts  that  u  Higher  Criticism,  so 
much  dreaded  by  pious  souls,  is  furnishing  a  conclu- 
sive answer  to  the  untiring  opponents  of  Revelation."  2 
It  "  has  solved  far  more  difficulties  than  it  has  sug- 
gested, and  gives  us  back  the  books  which  it  has 
handled,  not  only  intact  in  themselves,  but  accom- 
panied by  a  genuine  explanation  of  their  apparent 
flaws  and  imperfections." 3  "In  the  line  where  the 
Revelation  of  the  book  is  to  be  sought,  the  conclu- 
sions of  Criticism  have  made,  and  can  make,  no  dif- 
ference at  all,  while  they  have  furnished  a  sufficient 
explanation  of  those  confusions  and  discrepancies 
which,  according  to  former  views  of  the  composition, 
presented  insurmountable  difficulties."  4 

1  Loisy,  "  Etudes  Bibliques,"  p.  48. 
*  "Revelation  and  the  Bible,"  p.  61. 
8  p.  91. 

4  p.  105.     Cf.  Lyman  Abbott,  "The  Life  and  Literature  of  the 
Ancient  Hebrews,"  p.  v.    The  conclusions  of  the  critical  school  "do 


THE    PRESENT   DISTRESS         31 

There  are  many  signs  that  the  presentation  of  the 
critical  results  of  Bible  study  not  only  can  be,  but  is 
being  understood  and  even  welcomed  by  the  rank  and 
file  of  the  laity.  A  German  Professor  tells  of  an 
evangelical  working  men's  association  which  had  been 
perplexed  by  a  study  of  the  laws  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, and  was  anxious  to  hear  the  question  discussed 
by  a  specialist.  The  Professor  undertook  the  task; 
and  they  listened  to  him,  he  tells  us,  not  only  with 
interest,  but  with  grateful  and  intelligent  apprecia- 
tion, as  he  sketched  the  three  great  codes,  pointed  out 
their  salient  features,  and  showed  how  each  in  its  day 
subserved  the  purpose  of  God.  A  similar  experiment 
by  a  Methodist  Professor  in  Canada  was  attended  with 
similar  success.1 

Criticism  is  helpful,  but  not  necessary  to  the  un- 
derstanding of  the  essential  truth  of  the  Bible.  In 
days  when  other  methods  of  interpretation  prevailed, 
the  Bible  compelled  men  to  listen  to  it,  to  love  it,  and 
to  live  by  it.  Its  message  to  the  heart  is  too  honest 
and  obvious  to  evade.  The  Bible  can  be  trusted  to 
take  care  of  itself.  We  know  in  what  we  have  be- 
lieved. "  These  are  days,"  says  the  venerable  F.  B. 
Meyer,  "  in  which  men  tremble  for  the  ark  of  the  tes- 
timony, as  though  the  Word  of  God  were  in  serious 

not  imperil  spiritual  faith,  —  on  the  contrary,  they  enhance  the  value 
of  the  Bible  as  an  instrument  for  the  cultivation  of  the  spiritual  faith." 
1  One  who  would  wish  to  see  how  the  preacher  can  make  the  results 
of  the  modern  criticism  of  the  Pentateuch  directly  contribute  to  the 
edification  of  the  Church,  could  not  do  better  than  read  Rev.  Buchanan 
Blake's  recent  book  on  "  Joseph  and  Moses,  the  Founders  of  Israel." 
The  two  prophetic  sources  for  these  lives  are  there  taken  apart  and 
printed  continuously,  and  these  tales  are  then  expounded  as  independ- 
ent narratives. 


32     OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

peril;  but  those  of  us  who  have  approved  its  living 
power  in  solving  the  questions  and  problems  of  the 
inner  life  .  .  .  are  not  anxious  as  to  the  issue.  The 
heart  of  man  will  never  allow  itself  to  be  robbed  of 
the  Bible."1 

1  From  the  preface  to  the  late  G.  H.  C.  Macgregor's  "  Messages  of 
the  Old  Testament." 


CHAPTER  II 
THE  DISCOURTESIES   OF  CRITICISM 

RIDICULE  may  have  its  place,  but  that  place  is 
hardly  within  the  department  of  criticism ;  and  it  is 
with  some  surprise  that  we  read  the  following  confes- 
sion from  a  well-informed  opponent  of  criticism :  "  In 
the  following  pages,  while  the  attempt  has  been  made 
to  grapple  fairly  and  fully  with  some  few  of  the  diffi- 
culties presented  by  modern  criticism  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament, the  writer  lias  not  considered  himself  precluded 
from  occasionally  employing  the  method  of  ridicule." 1 
One  feels  inclined  to  ask,  Cui  bono  ?  Who  is  benefited 
by  such  a  method  ?  Obviously  neither  the  critics  nor 
their  opponents.  Ridicule  may  provoke,  but  it  will 
seldom  convince.  Still,  it  is  lamentably  true  that  this 
method,  which  is  so  little  calculated  to  conciliate  or 
instruct  an  opponent,  is  but  too  commonly  used  by 
both  parties ;  and  it  is  with  great  satisfaction  that  we 
find  another  opponent  of  the  movement  entering  on 
a  difficult  branch  of  the  controversy  with  the  noble 
words :  u  May  no  bitter  word  be  uttered ;  for  the 
ground  on  which  we  are  standing  is  indeed  holy 
ground."  2 

1  Blomfield,  "The  Old  Testament  and  the  New  Criticism,"  p.  38, 
The  italics  are  ours. 

2  Girdlestone,  "  Doctor  Doctorum,"  p.  13. 

3 


34     OLD    TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

The  greatest  injustice  that  one  can  do  to  an  oppo- 
nent's position  is  to  misrepresent  it.  This  is  a  species 
of  injustice  from  which  the  critical  position  has  often 
suffered.  Doubtless  the  misrepresentation  is  not 
always  deliberate.  Indeed  it  is  not  possible  to  rep- 
resent any  position  —  critical  or  any  other  —  fairly 
and  adequately  without  such  a  sympathetic  study  as 
is  seldom  given  to  it  by  one  who  approaches  it  for 
controversial  purposes ;  but  whether  deliberate  or 
not,  misrepresentation  is  mischievous  and  unfair. 
A  very  earnest  and  courteous  defender  of  the  faith l 
avers  that  u  the  actual  Moses  of  the  analytical  [i.  e. 
critical]  view  is  some  unknown  person  or  persons 
who  lived  ages  afterwards  in  the  declining  days  of 
the  Exile.  Does  not  common  sense  itself,"  he  asks, 
"  protest  against  such  an  absolute  inversion  of  all 
historical  testimony  and  all  historical  credibility?" 
Certainly,  we  reply ;  not  only  common  sense,  but 
the  majority  of  the  critics  themselves,  who,  even  on 
the  admission  of  a  conservative,2  allow  that  Moses 
was  an  extraordinary  personality.  Dr.  Lyman  Abbott 
is  much  nearer  the  truth  when  he  says  that  "  substan- 
tially all  critics  recognize  in  Moses  one  of  the  greatest 
and  most  creative  spirits  of  ancient  history."  3 

Again,  nothing  is  commoner  than  to  contend  that, 
on  the  critical  view,  the  Pentateuch  is  reduced  to  a 
"  patchwork,"  as  it  is  derisively  called.  The  word  is 
an  awkward  one,  but  the  fact  which  it  covers  is  com- 
mon enough  in  literature.  In  spite  of  the  Rev.  L.  W. 

1  Ellicott,  "  Christus  Comprobator,"  p.  81. 

2  Hopfl,  "  Die  hohere  Bibelkritik,"  p.  54. 

*  "  The  Life  and  Literature  of  the  Ancient  Hebrews,"  p.  92. 


DISCOURTESIES   OF   CRITICISM     35 

Munhall's  dictum 1  that  "  no  other  book  was  so  con- 
structed, no  book  could  be  so  constructed,"  we  have 
the  evidence,  already  quoted,  of  so  competent  an  au- 
thority as  Professor  Sayce  to  the  contrary  —  to  say 
nothing  of  modern  novels  and  plays.  As  an  illustra- 
tion of  the  argument  by  which  an  attempt  is  sometimes 
made  to  refute  the  critical  solution  of  difficulties,  the 
following  vigorous  passage  may  be  quoted :  "  A  scissors 
exegesis  is  not  American.  Our  public  schools  have 
taught  us  to  be  more  accurate.  To  slice  a  verse  or 
two  out  of  a  section,  or  to  cut  a  verse  into  halves  or 
thirds,  may  comport  with  German  ideas  of  scholarship, 
but  we  are  proud  to  say  that  it  will  never  be  patented 
in  America.  .  .  .  To  treat  the  Bible  with  such  indig- 
nity and  such  bungling  scholarship  will  never  become 
an  American  custom."  2 

This  last  quotation,  with  its  depreciation  of  German 
scholarship,  furnishes  us  with  a  species  of  argument 
which  is  more  common  than  convincing.  We  hear, 
e.  g.,  of  certain  "  objections  to  the  credibility  of  the 
Scriptures  that  are  now  paraded  before  the  world  by 
unconverted  theological  professors  in  German  Univer- 
sities, and  then  reproduced  by  foolish  theological  pro- 
fessors in  Great  Britain  and  America."  3  This  might 
be  excused  in  the  heat  of  a  public  address,4  but  it  is 
a  little  disappointing  to  find  statements  not  very  dis- 

1  "  Anti-Higher  Criticism,"  p.  10.     So  Behrends,  "  The  Old  Testa- 
ment under  Fire,"  p.  133.     "  It  is  simply  incredible  that  Genesis  was 
put  together  as  the  critics  claim." 

2  G.  T.  Smith,  "  Critique  on  Higher  Criticism,"  pp.  199,  200. 
8  Munhall,  "Anti-Higher  Criticism,"  p.  189. 

4  The  chapters  of  this  book  were  originally  addresses  delivered  at  a 
Bible  Conference  in  Asbury  Park,  N.  J.,  in  1893. 


36     OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

similar  occurring  on  the  pages  of  a  learned  theological 
review  ;  as  when  we  are  assured,  for  example,  that  a 
certain  interpretation  of  the  language  of  the  51st 
Psalm  is  not  surprising  in  "  a  wooden  German  critic, 
who  would  measure  religious  emotion  with  a  foot- 
rule."  l  Even  Bishop  Ellicott,  after  admitting  the 
great  industry,  the  unexampled  patience  and  singular 
insight,  of  the  foreign  scholars,  suspects  that  they  are 
destitute  of  "  that  cool  common  sense  .  .  .  which  can 
never  be  dispensed  with."2  It  would  indeed  be  singu- 
lar if  scholars  who  possessed  so  many  senses  which 
are  exceptional  were  destitute  of  that  which  was  com- 
mon ;  all  the  more  that  their  opinions  and  attitude 
are  largely  shared  by  an  ever-increasing  number  of 
scholars  in  English-speaking  countries  which  are 
supposed  to  be  pre-eminently  gifted  with  that  desir- 
able commodity.  The  learned  bishop  is  no  doubt 
right  in  suspecting  that  "  insular  prejudice "  has 
something  to  do  with  his  opinion.  The  critic  of  the 
Higher  Criticism  to  whom  we  have  already  referred 
deliberately  ridicules  the  patient  and  indefatigable  toil 
with  which  the  German  repeats  his  experiments  and 
accumulates  his  facts.3  It  seems  a  poor  argumen- 
tum  ad  hominem.  Wooden  heads  are  not  the  monop- 
oly of  any  one  country.  There  is  at  least  as  much 
likelihood  in  the  truth  being  reached  by  a  man  who 
scorns  delights  and  lives  laborious  days  in  the  search 
for  it,  as  by  a  man  who  ridicules  those  who  take  this 
trouble.  An  argument  might  be  good  though  it  came 

1  "Presbyterian  and  Reformed  Review,"  January,  1902,  p.  137. 

2  "  Christus  Comprobator,"  p.  36. 
8  G.  T.  Smith,  "Critique,"  p.  301. 


DISCOURTESIES   OF   CRITICISM     37 

from  Germany,  just  as  it  might  be  bad  though  it 
came  from  Britain  or  America.  Its  national  origin 
has  simply  nothing  to  do  with  its  essential  value  :  that 
can  be,  and  should  be,  tested  by  scientific  canons.1 

This  method  of  what  may  be  called  argument  by 
innuendo  is  not  confined  to  the  opponents  of  the  critics  ; 
the  critics  themselves  can  use  it  when  it  serves  them. 
An  argument  is  not  carried  much  farther,  e.  g.  when 
we  are  told  that  "  no  respectable  commentator  "  would 
countenance  a  certain  interpretation  of  Genesis  vi.  in 
our  day.2  Standards  of  respectability  are  notoriously 
uncertain.  Nor  are  we  greatly  edified  to  learn  that  it 
is  "persons  lacking  in  the  literary  sense"  who  take 
the  early  books  of  the  Old  Testament  as  statements 
of  fact.  Both  parties  too  commonly  assume  that  their 
view  is  the  only  one  possible  to  a  man  of  any  real  lit- 
erary or  spiritual  insight.  The  great  question,  for 
example,  of  the  true  principle  of  progression  mani- 
fested in  the  history  of  Israel  is  not  exactly  settled 
beyond  dispute  by  the  simple  assertion  that  "  to  every 
one  who  has  any  spiritual  perception,"  the  traditional 
view  is  "  immeasurably  superior  "  to  the  critical.3  A 
writer  in  "  Bibliotheca  Sacra"4  affirms  that  those 
who  think  that  the  first  and  second  chapters  of  Gen- 
esis contradict  each  other  "  betray  a  dulness  of  lite- 
rary apprehension  that  makes  an  ordinary  reader  lose 
faith  in  their  judgment."  When  we  remember  that 
this  sweeping  condemnation  includes  many  men  in 

1  For  a  fine  tribute  to  the  patient  and  thorough  methods  of  Ger- 
many, see  Fronde's  essay  on  the  "  Revival  of  Romanism,"  section  viii. 

2  Briggs,  "  The  Study  of  Holy  Scripture,"  p.  333. 
«  J.  Smith,  "  The  Integrity  of  Scripture,"  p.  249. 

4  January,  1902,  p.  201. 


38     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

several  lands  whose  literary  instincts,  as  attested  by 
their  own  literary  work,  are  of  the  highest  order,  we 
begin  to  console  ourselves  with  the  reflection  that 
standards  of  literary  apprehension,  like  standards  of 
respectability,  are  variable. 

Misrepresentation  and  innuendo  prove  nothing ; 
neither  does  caricature.  Probably  no  feature  of  the 
Higher  Criticism  has  suffered  so  much  at  the  hands 
of  the  caricaturists  as  the  compositeness  of  the  Penta- 
teuch and  the  customary  nomenclature  of  the  docu- 
ments. "  When  the  critic  corrects  his  remark,"  we 
are  airily  told,  "  by  saying  '  five,'  it  can  be  shown  that 
no  smart  critic  is  satisfied  with  less  than  seven.  If  he 
admits  seven,  nine  can  be  laid  before  him  ;  if  he  con- 
fesses there  are  eleven,  thirteen  will  be  produced,  and 
so  on,  till  he  is  weary,  and  yet  there  will  be  left  seven 
baskets  of  fragments  predicated  to  exist  in  the  Penta- 
teuch." 1  Even  the  uninitiated,  one  would  suppose, 
would  feel  the  injustice  of  this.  Dr.  Kennedy2  in- 
forms his  "unlearned"  readers  that  "the  process 
began  modestly  with  A,  B,  C,  D.  But  it  grew  till  we 
have  J,  E,  Q,  P,  —  with  J1  and  J2,  E1  and  E2,  P1  and 
P2  and  P3,  D1  and  D2,  which  represent  different  strata 
in  the  hypothetic  original  documents.  .  .  .  We  ask 
with  confidence  whether  the  process  alleged  by  the 
critics,  or  anything  like  it,  can  be  made  intelligible  to 
any  but  the  critics  themselves  ?  And  it  may  be  fairly 
asked  whether  it  is  intelligible  even  to  them  ?  "  The 
answer  is  at  hand.  It  is  this  :  not  only  that  the  pro- 

1  G.  T.  Smith,  "  Critique  on  Higher  Criticism,"  p.  304. 

2  "Old  Testament  Criticism  and  the  Rights  of  the  Unlearned," 
p.  89. 


DISCOURTESIES   OF   CRITICISM     39 

cess  is  intelligible  to  the  critics  themselves,  but  that  it 
has,  in  Robertson  Smith's  "  Old  Testament  in  the  Jew- 
ish Church,"  and  elsewhere,  been  made  thoroughly 
intelligible  even  to  the  man  who  is  not  an  expert. 
These  letters  stand  for  the  authors  of  documents; 
because  we  cannot  name  the  men,  it  does  not  follow 
that  the  symbols  which  represent  them  are  ridiculous. 
Such  symbols  may  be  prosaic,  but  they  are  useful. 

It  is  further  surprising,  not  to  say  painful,  to  find 
ridicule  cast  by  honored  scholars  upon  the  long  and 
necessarily  difficult  process  by  which  the  present 
critical  position  has  been  reached.  We  shall  let 
Principal  Cave  present  his  case  for  the  opposition ; 
this  he  does  in  the  form  of  a  dialogue.  " '  Genesis, 
we  aver,  is  a  compilation  of  two  documents,  an  Elohist 
and  Jehovist  document,'  said  the  Decomposition- 
Critics  about  the  beginning  of  the  century.  But,  it 
was  objected,  no  mere  compilation  could  have  pro- 
duced such  a  book.  '  Allow  us  to  amend  our  theory/ 
replied  the  Decomposition-Critics,  '  and  permit  us  to 
say  that  Genesis,  so  far  from  being  a  mere  compila- 
tion of  two  works,  is  a  new  and  much  enlarged  edition 
of  one  man's  work  (the  Elohist)  by  a  second  (the 
Jehovist).'  But,  it  was  objected,  why  speak  of  Gene- 
sis only,  why  not  extend  this  process  to  all  the  Books 
of  the  Law  ?  '  Why  not,  indeed,'  replied  the  Decom- 
position-Critics, *  allow  us  to  amend  our  theory  again, 
and  say  that  the  whole  Law,  as  well  as  Genesis,  is  the 
result  of  a  supplementing  by  the  Jehovist  of  the  doc- 
ument of  the  Elohist?'  But,  again  it  was  objected, 
so  uniform  a  book  as  Deuteronomy  could  not  have 
been  the  product  of  such  a  process.  '  You  are  quite 


40     OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

right/  said  the  Decomposition-Critics ;  ;  we  will  again 
amend  our  theory,  and  say  that  the  Pentateuch  is  a 
supplementing  by  the  Jehovist  of  two  original  works, 
written,  one  by  the  Elohist,  and  the  other  by  the 
Deuteronomist.'  But,  it  was  again  objected,  the  sec- 
tions attributed  to  the  Jehovist  sometimes  contained 
the  name  of  Elohim,  and  sometimes  showed  the  style 
of  the  Elohist.  '  Again  you  are  right,'  say  the  De- 
composition-Critics ;  4  we  will  amend  our  theory  once 
more,  and  say  that  there  are  two  Elohistic  documents, 
an  earlier  and  a  later.'  But,  yet  again  it  was  objected, 
perhaps  the  order  of  writing  is  not  Elohist,  Deuteron- 
omist,  Jehovist.  '  There  is  no  perhaps  in  the  ques- 
tion,' said  the  Decomposition-Critics.  '  Allow  us  to 
amend  our  theory;  we  now  desire  to  consider  that 
writer  as  the  latest  whom  we  formerly  considered  the 
earliest,  and  we  now  declare  the  order  of  writing  to  be 
Jehovist,  Deuteronomist,  Elohist.'  But,  it  was  once 
more  objected,  there  are  facts  which  will  not  square 
with  this  view.  '  Therefore  we  will  amend  our  theory 
again,'  said  the  Decomposition-Critics,  '  manifestly  it 
is  too  simple ; '  "  and  so  on  in  this  strain.1  The  pas- 
sage is  so  characteristic  of  much  of  the  opposition  to 
Higher  Criticism  that  no  apology  need  be  offered  for 
quoting  at  such  length.  Now,  such  a  statement  may 
raise  a  laugh ;  but  laughter  is  not  argument.  This 
caricature  really  conceals  a  delicate  compliment  to 
the  critics.  It  shows  that  they  were  not  irretrievably 
committed  to  theories,  but  were  prepared  to  adjust 
the  theories  to  meet  new  facts.  And  is  not  that  how 
truth  of  every  kind  has  grown  —  through  the  steady 

1  Cave,  "  The  Battle  of  the  Standpoints,"  pp.  44-46. 


DISCOURTESIES   OF   CRITICISM     41 

accumulation  of  facts,  and  the  ceaseless  modification 
of  the  theories  that  sought  to  account  for  them  by 
the  discovery  of  fresh  facts  ?  It  is  no  disparagement 
to  the  critical  position  to  say  that  it  has  always  been 
willing  to  readjust  itself,  to  reinstate  elements  that 
have  been  depreciated  or  ignored,  and  to  meet  new 
facts  that  have  been  discovered.1 

Caricature  is  unworthy,  but  abuse  is  un-Christian ; 
yet  this  is  one  of  the  weapons  not  uncommonly 
brought  into  the  fray.  Not  a  few  books,  articles,  and 
reviews  are  plentifully  besprinkled  with  the  choicest 
theological  Billingsgate.  One  gentleman  defines  his 
idea  of  a  critic  in  the  following  expressive  words : 
"  I  mean  by  professional  critic  one  who  spends  his 
time  and  strength  in  trying  to  find  some  error  or  dis- 
crepancy in  the  Bible,  and,  if  he  thinks  he  does,  re- 
joiceth  as  '  one  who  findeth  great  spoil ; '  who  hopes, 
while  he  works,  that  he  may  succeed,  thinking  thereby 
to  obtain  a  name  and  notoriety  for  himself."  2  In  the 
light  of  the  very  different  motives  which  we  saw  in 
Chapter  I.  to  actuate  the  critics,  such  a  definition  may 
be  safely  left  to  refute  itself.  "  Theological  scaven- 
gers," "noisy  and  pretentious  heralds  of  a  Deutero- 
isaiah,"  with  their  "  impudent  assumptions  "  and  their 
"  moonshine  conjectures  "  —  these  are  the  terms  in 
which  the  truth  of  God  is  defended.3  One  may  be 

1  A  sympathetic  knowledge  of  the  history  of  criticism  would  fur- 
nish the  best  answer  to  the  attacks  upon  its  alleged  unreasonableness. 
An  admirable  sketch  of  the  "History  of  Hexateuch  Criticism,"  by 
Professor  W.  G.  Jordan,  of  Kingston,  will  be  found  in  the  "  Queen's 
Quarterly,"  January,  1903,  pp.  274-300. 

2  Munhall,  "  Anti-Higher  Criticism,"  p.  9. 

8  Sir  Robert  Anderson  speaks  of  "  the  foreign  infidel  type  of  scholar 


42     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

pardoned  for  wondering  whether  such  language,  to 
say  nothing  of  its  vulgarity,  can  be  supposed  by  any 
reasonable  man  to  tend  to  edification  ;  and  we  should 
with  gladness  pass  it  by,  were  it  not  that  it  is  but  too 
typical  of  much  of  the  spirit  in  which  criticism  is 
opposed  and  the  faith  defended.  The  lowest  depths 
were  recently  sounded  by  a  paper  which  shall  be 
nameless,  but  which  commented  on  a  gentleman  who 
had  the  misfortune  to  differ  from  the  editors,  in  the 
following  terms :  "  We  are  pleased  to  present  our 
readers  this  week  with  a  portrait  likeness  of  -  — ; 
pleased,  not  because  this  picture  will  satisfy  curiosity, 
but  because  it  carries  with  it  a  complete  refutation  of 

the  thought  that  has  been  in  some  minds,  that 

was  a  man  of  great  depth  and  vast  authority  in  the 
subject  he  has  rashly  entered."  One  can  only  say 
with  sorrow,  "  Ye  know  not  what  spirit  ye  are  of." 
There  is  a  time  to  be  gentle,  and  a  time  to  be  severe ; 
but  there  is  never  a  time  to  be  scurrilous. 

It  is  astonishing  to  find  that  this  abusive  attitude  is 
not  confined  to  ephemeral  magazines,  or  to  the  public 
platform,  but  has  its  representatives  in  sober  theolo- 
gical monthlies  and  quarterlies.  Not  long  ago  two 
important  contributions  to  the  history  of  Israel's 
religion  were  dismissed,  in  a  review  as  unjust  as  it 
was  brief,  by  a  sarcastic  compliment  to  the  excellence 
of  the  binding  of  the  books.  Book  reviews  are  often 

...  as  ignorant  of  man  and  his  needs  as  a  monk,  and  as  ignorant  of 
God  and  His  ways  as  a  monkey  "  ("  The  Bible  and  Modern  Criticism," 
p.  19).  This  may  be  clever,  but  is  it  just  ?  No  more  than  Behrends' 
assertion  that,  according  to  criticism,  "  The  history  is  fabricated  and 
false  from  cover  to  cover  "  ("  The  Old  Testament  under  Fire,"  p.  185). 
The  cause  of  truth  has  little  to  gain  from  extravagances  of  this  sort. 


DISCOURTESIES   OF   CRITICISM     43 

cruelly  unfair,  even  in  quarters  where  one  would 
naturally  expect  to  find  conscience  and  justice.  A 
book  whose  standpoint  is  not  that  of  the  reviewer  is 
often  condemned  outright,  without  the  faintest  regard 
to  the  author's  constructive  interests  or  to  the  rever- 
ence of  his  spirit.  Illustrations  are  legion.  There 
are,  of  course,  on  both  sides  of  the  controversy  many 
honorable  exceptions. 

There  is  not  a  superabundance  of  courtesy  on  the 
part  of  the  controversialists  for  each  other  ;  but  what, 
in  particular,  pains  the  defenders  of  the  older  position 
is  that  their  opponents  often  seem  to  adopt  so  flippant 
a  tone  in  their  discussions  of  the  Bible.  It  may  be 
frankly  confessed  that  the  tone  of  the  critics  has  often 
been  needlessly,  sometimes  absurdly,  offensive ;  though 
here  it  is  only  fair  to  say  that  their  spirit  and  atti- 
tude cannot  be  correctly  judged  by  such  words  as 
"  fraud,"  u  forgery,"  and  the  like,  which  appear  plen- 
tifully enough  on  the  pages  of  their  opponents,  but 
would  be  disowned  as  misleading  by  practically  all 
the  critics  themselves.  Still,  it  is  nothing  less  than 
deplorable  to  find  so  great  a  scholar  as  Duhm l  charac- 
terize the  one  hundred  and  nineteenth  Psalm  as  "  the 
emptiest  production  that  ever  blackened  paper."  Flip- 
pancies of  this  kind  have  done  immeasurable  harm  to 
the  cause  of  criticism.  Again  we  would  ask,  Cui 
bono  ?  No  one  is  helped  by  such  a  criticism,  and  many 
will  be  provoked  by  it.  It  is  more  than  flippant,  it 
is  unjust.  It  disqualifies  the  man  who  makes  it  from 

1  "  Die  Psalmen,"  p.  268.  Much  of  the  recent  work  of  that  admi- 
rable scholar  is  marred  by  a  vehemence  which  is  neither  dignified  nor 
necessary. 


44     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

interpreting  the  meditative  psalms.  One  who  does 
not  himself  respond  to  the  tender  brooding  regard  for 
Scripture  which  shines  through  the  Psalm  should  not 
scoff  at  the  thing  he  cannot  appreciate. 

It  is  necessary,  however,  to  distinguish  between  the 
flippancy  which  is  never  justified,  and  the  humor 
which  is  often  wholesome  and  luminant.  There  may 
easily  be  humor  without  irreverence.  Gunkel,  e.g., 
seems  to  violate  no  canons  of  propriety  when  he  gives 
as  the  reason  for  the  choice  of  a  rib  as  the  material 
out  of  which  woman  was  to  be  made,  the  fact  that  man 
had  ribs  enough  and  to  spare ; 1  nor  yet  again,  when 
he  contends  that  in  the  original  story  the  wrestling 
of  Jacob  had  nothing  to  do  with  prayer,  for  "  in  the 
wrestlings  of  prayer  one  does  not  dislocate  one's 
thigh."2  Of  a  similar  kind  is  the  remark  of  Well- 
hausen,  quoted  by  Robertson  Smith,  that  when  the 
original  text  represents  any  one  as  eating,  a  compas- 
sionate editor  usually  gives  him  something  to  drink. 
This  is  nothing  but  a  happy  characterization  of  a 
common  textual  phenomenon.  Other  kinds  of  state- 
ments may  occasionally  sound  irreverent,  while  to  one 
accustomed  to  a  severely  scientific  method  they  may 
be  perfectly  natural.  "  When  we  read,"  says  Hof- 
mann,3  "  in  Numbers  xiii.  22,  that  Hebron  was  built 
seven  years  before  Zoan,  the  accuracy  of  this  histori- 
cal notice  depends  upon  whether  the  author  was  in  a 
position  to  know  it."  Is  it  not  so  ?  Or  are  we  to 
suppose  that  such  a  fact  as  the  date  of  the  building 

1  "  Handkommentar  zum  A.  T.  Genesis,"  p.  10. 

2  Id.  p.  326. 

3  Quoted  by  Kohler,  "  Berechtigung  der  Kritik,"  p.  39. 


DISCOURTESIES   OF    CRITICISM     45 

of  this  town,  which  has  little  obvious  relation  to  the 
salvation  of  our  immortal  souls,  was  the  subject  of  a 
special  revelation  from  Almighty  God  ? 

All  these  points  may  be  safely  enough  conceded, 
and  yet  it  cannot  be  too  strenuously  maintained  that 
the  true  Biblical  critic  must  be  not  only  temperate, 
but  reverent.  The  only  science  which  will  help  us 
much  in  a  theme  so  lofty  is  the  science  which  adds  to 
its  knowledge  reverence.  Reverence  is  as  indispen- 
sable as  knowledge  and  patience.  It  was  One  who 
knew  that  said  of  the  Scriptures,  "  They  testify  of 
me."  Those  Scriptures  were  spoken  by  holy  men  of 
God,  "  borne  on  "  by  the  Divine  Spirit.  They  have 
been  the  daily  bread  of  the  Christian  Church  for  cen- 
turies. Whether  we  regard  their  origin,  their  func- 
tion, or  their  power  in  the  past  and  present,  they  come 
to  us  weighted  with  a  solemn  and  mysterious  dignity ; 
and  while  they  must  continue  to  be  the  object  of  the 
keenest  investigation,  they  must  be  approached  in  the 
spirit  of  a  little  child.  There  is  no  quarrel  between 
the  spirit  of  reverence  and  the  spirit  of  science.  Rev- 
erence is  even  a  scientific  necessity.  Its  function  is 
to  keep  in  view  not  the  mere  documentary  facts  only, 
but  also  the  faith  and  feeling  of  the  Christian  Church 
as  emerging  out  of  and  related  to  those  facts. 

So  solemn  a  trust  as  is  committed  to  us  in  the 
Holy  Scriptures  does  not  need  the  defence  of  scurril- 
ity. Eduard  Rupprecht  defends  his  use  of  "  unpar- 
liamentary "  language  against  an  American  protest  by 
remarking1  that  his  critic  had  forgotten  that  there 

1  u  Die  Kritik  nach  ihrem  Recht  und  Unrecht,"  p.  58.  The  Bishop 
of  Durham,  who  contributes  a  preface  to  Sir  Robert  Anderson's  "  The 


46     OLD   TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

was  an  end  to  parliamentary  language  "  when  one 
was  standing  not  in  Parliament,  but  in  hot  combat 
with  rebels  against  the  absolute  authority  of  Him  who 
was  in  every  word  the  true  God  and  eternal  life." 
There  was  a  time  when  saintly  men  like  Wesley  and 
Toplady  could  stoop  to  the  language  of  extravagant 
recrimination,  but  surely  the  day  for  that  is  past. 
Neither  science  nor  religion  has  anything  to  gain  by 
abuse.  It  is  diametrically  opposed  to  the  temper  of 
both,  and  only  brings  into  disrepute  the  cause  for 
which  it  is  invoked.  It  is  well  to  remember  that 
there  will  probably  always  be  on  some  questions  a 
certain  margin  of  difference  between  Biblical  scholars, 
to  whatever  school  they  belong.  For  of  the  two  ele- 
ments which  more  or  less  determine  every  presenta- 
tion of  truth  —  fact  and  feeling  —  the  facts,  though 
the  same  for  all,  are  often  few  and  difficult  to  corre- 
late, while  the  feeling  will  naturally  vary  more  or  less 
with  every  individual.  Our  only  hope  is  in  reverent 
and  dispassionate  discussion,  animated  by  the  faith 
that,  as  the  Word  of  the  Lord  has  already  proved  it- 
self in  history,  so  it  will  continue  to  abide  for  ever 
and  ever.  It  has  survived  many  perilous  attacks,  and 
many  still  more  perilous  defences,  and  it  will  go  on 
conquering  and  to  conquer ;  for  it  is  true,  and  truth  is 
eternal. 

A  reverent  spirit  will  inspire  the  critic  with  a  sense 
of   perspective.     He   will   have   little   to   say   about 

Bible  and  Modern  Criticism,"  nevertheless  expressly  dissociates  him- 
self from  "  passages  which  reflect  upon  the  animus  of  some  represent- 
atives of  the  New  Criticism  with  a  severity  I  cannot  follow  "  (p.  vi). 
Yet  he  allows  that  the  "  mere  courtesies  "  of  controversy  "  may  not 
always  be  in  place  "  (p.  x). 


DISCOURTESIES   OF   CRITICISM 


errors,  discrepancies,  and  inconsistencies  ;  and  even 
that  little  he  will  say  with  regret.  He  will  say  it 
only  under  the  constraint  of  scientific  necessity,  and 
only  because  it  has  some  light  to  shed  on  the  progress 
or  nature  of  revelation.  The  ideal  of  criticism  has 
been  admirably  defined  as  "the  free  study  of  all 
facts."  l  Every  word  here  is  weighty.  It  is  study,  i.  e. 
investigation,  neither  blind  acceptance  nor  inconsid- 
erate rejection.  It  is  free  study  —  study  that  is  not 
bound  by  conventional  or  traditional  belief,  but  that  is 
willing  to  go  wherever  the  facts  lead.  It  is  study  of 
facts,  not  of  theories  or  speculations  about  the  facts  ; 
though  doubtless,  when  the  facts  are  marshalled  and 
studied,  the  mind  will  feel  the  impulse  to  find  the 
explanation  which  will  best  account  for  them.  And, 
finally,  it  is  study  of  all  facts  ;  that  would  include,  in 
the  case  of  Biblical  study,  psychological  and  spiritual 
facts  —  such  as  the  call  of  the  prophets  —  which  are 
sometimes  too  lightly  evaded  ;  it  would  include  also 
facts  of  tradition  as  well  as  facts  of  history.  There 
is  a  mystery  about  all  facts,  and  most  of  all  about 
Biblical  facts:  this  mystery,  as  soon  as  it  is  felt, 
begets  reverence.  Biblical  criticism  may  therefore 
be  defined  as  the  free  and  reverent  study  of  all 
the  Biblical  facts. 

1  Nash,  "  The  History  of  the  Higher  Criticism  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment," p.  85. 


CHAPTER  III 
THE  CONFUSIONS  OF   CRITICISM 

OP  the  many  things  which  have  tended  to  bring 
Higher  Criticism  into  disrepute,  not  the  least  impor- 
tant has  been  the  alleged  existence  of  "  extraordinary 
differences  in  the  results  at  which  they  [i.  e.  the 
critics]  arrive,  while  starting  from  and  building  on 
the  same  critical  principles." 1  If  the  principles  were 
sound,  it  is  argued,  the  divergences  between  those  who 
maintain  them  could  not  be  so  serious  ;  and  the  whole 
movement  is  rejected  because  its  representatives  are 
not  wholly  agreed  among  themselves.  Now,  there  are 
reasons  for  these  divergences ;  but,  before  proceeding 
to  discuss  them,  let  us  boldly  face  the  facts  and  frankly 
admit  that,  in  many  not  unimportant  directions,  there 
are  wide  differences  among  the  critics —  differences 
which,  until  one  sees  how  naturally  they  arise,  are 
perplexing  and  confusing,  and  seem,  on  a  superficial 
view,  to  make  against  the  critical  position  as  a  whole. 

These  divergences  may  be  illustrated  from  every 
part  of  the  Old  Testament ;  for  convenience,  we  shall 

1  Kennedy,  "  Old  Testament  Criticism  and  the  Rights  of  the  Un- 
learned," p.  24.  Gladstone  ("  Impregnable  Rock,"  ch.  5)  complains 
that  there  is  not  the  same  "  unanimity,  continuity,  and  ascertained 
progress  "  in  Old  Testament  studies  that  there  is  in  the  natural  sciences. 


CONFUSIONS   OF    CRITICISM      49 

adopt  the  division   into    (A)    the   historical   books, 
(B)  the  prophetical  books,  (C)  the  others. 

(A)  There  is  little  harmony  among  the  critics  as  to 
the  dates  of  the  three  leading  documents  (apart  from 
Deuteronomy)  into  which  the  Hexateuch  has  been 
analyzed  —  the  Jehovist,  the  Elohist,  and  the  priestly 
document.  There  is  indeed  a  very  large  preponder- 
ance of  opinion  to  the  effect  that  the  body  of  the 
priestly  code  in  its  present  form  is  exilic  or  post-ex- 
ilic ;  but  there  are  at  least  two  distinguished  scholars 
who  have  given  the  most  careful  consideration  to  all 
the  available  evidence,  and  who  maintain  that  that 
document  is  pre-exilic.  Again,  so  far  from  the  dates 
of  the  Jehovist  and  the  Elohist  being  absolutely  fixed, 
there  is  some  dispute  even  as  to  which  is  prior  to  the 
other.  There  is  a  growing  conviction  that  the  Jehov- 
ist is  the  earlier  :  this  is  the  opinion  of  Kautzsch  and 
of  the  two  most  recent  commentators  on  Genesis, 
Gunkel  and  Mitchell ;  but  the  priority  of  the  Elohist 
is  maintained  by  McCurdy1  and  others.  Roughly 
speaking,2  both  documents  are  assigned  by  most  crit- 
ical scholars  to  the  eighth  and  ninth  centuries  B.  c. 
Sellin,  on  the  other  hand,  a  very  brilliant  and  able 
scholar,  believes  that  the  Jehovist  belongs  to  the  time 
of  David,  and  the  Elohist  to  the  time  of  Solomon.3 

Nor  does  the  difference  touch  the  dates  only  of  the 
documents :  it  equally  affects  the  dates  of  certain  of 
the  more  important  institutions.  Of  the  Book  of  the 

1  "  History,  Prophecy,  and  the  Monuments,"  vol.  iii.  pp.  70-72. 

2  Statements  that  are  so  brief  and  summary  are  necessarily  very 
rough. 

8  "  Beitrage  zur  israelitischen  und  jiidischen  Religionsgeschichte," 
vol.  ii.  pp.  13,  15.  (David,  about  1000  B.  c. ;  Solomon,  about  970.) 

4 


50     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

Covenant  (Ex.  xx.  22-xxiii.  33)  Kautzsch  is  not 
willing  to  say  much  more  than  it  probably  arose  on 
the  soil  of  the  Northern  Kingdom.1  Day,  in  his  book 
on  u  The  Social  Life  of  the  Hebrews,"  2  says  that  it  can- 
not have  been  earlier  than  the  eighth  century ;  while 
Sellin  is  equally  confident  that  it  belongs  to  the  pre- 
monarchic  period.3  The  gravest  divergences  gather 
round  the  institution  which  is,  in  many  ways,  the 
most  important  of  all,  namely,  the  Decalogue.  Budde  4 
roundly  affirms  the  "  impossibility  of  the  Mosaic  origin 
of  the  Ten  Commandments."  Several  scholars  bring 
it  down  as  late  as  Manasseh's  reign  in  the  seventh 
century.6  Piepenbring6  places  it  earlier,  denying 
that  it  necessarily  presupposes  the  preaching  of  the 
prophets  of  the  eighth  century ;  but  he  also  main- 
tains that  "  there  is  no  serious  basis  in  history  "  for 
the  traditional  ascription  to  Moses.  Yet  one  of  the 
latest  utterances  on  the  Decalogue  by  an  exception- 
ally well-informed  scholar7  is  a  vindication  of  its 
Mosaic  origin.  Ottley,  too,  maintains  that  "  the  tra- 
ditional view  of  the  Decalogue  is  intrinsically 
credible."  8 

Within  the  last  few  years  a  great  controversy  has 
gathered    round    the    poskexilic    history   in    Ezra- 

1  "Abriss,"p.  27.  2  p.  183. 

8  Beitrage,  vol.  ii.  pp.  42,  43. 

4  "  The  Religion  of  Israel  to  the  Exile,"  p.  32. 

5  "  Perhaps  to  this  period  the  Decalogue,  which  is  so  eloquently 
silent  in  regard  to  cultus,  is  to  be  assigned."     Wellhausen,  "  Israel  and 
Judah"  (translation),  p.  112. 

6  "Histoire  du  Peuple  d'lsrael,"  p.  200. 

7  Peters  on  "  The  Religion  of  Moses,"  in  the  "  Journal  of  Biblical 
Literature,"  vol.  xx.  1901,  pt.  2. 

*  "  History  of  the  Hebrews,"  p.  296. 


CONFUSIONS   OF    CRITICISM      51 

Nehemiah;  certain  scholars  maintaining  that  there 
was  no  such  general  return  of  the  exiles  from  Baby- 
lon about  537  B.  c.  as  has  been  commonly  supposed. 
Some  of  the  exiles  would  no  doubt  take  advantage  of 
the  permission  granted  by  Cyrus  to  return  to  their 
own  land,  but,  it  is  maintained,  there  was  no  large 
and  popular  movement.  Again,  the  priority  of  Ezra 
to  Nehemiah  is  being  stubbornly  contested ;  it  is  ar- 
gued that  when  all  the  circumstances  are  taken  into 
account,  there  is  a  probability  so  high  as  to  amount 
to  a  practical  certainty  that  Nehemiah  preceded  Ezra 
and  prepared  the  way  for  him.  This  is  one  of  the 
most  difficult  controversies  in  the  field  of  Old  Testa- 
ment history,  and  nothing  like  unanimity  has  yet 
been  reached.1 

The  divergence  of  critical  opinion  relative  to  the 
prose  of  the  historical  books  of  the  Old  Testament 
extends  also  to  the  sporadic  poetry  that  is  there  found. 
The  blessing  of  Jacob  (Gen.  xlix.)  assigned  by  some  to 
the  reign  of  Jeroboam  II.  in  the  eighth  century  is  put 
back  by  Gunkel 2  to  the  reign  of  David  or  Solomon, 
who  argues  that  no  verse  necessarily  presupposes  the 
divided  monarchy,  while  the  original  form  of  the  poem 
doubtless  goes  back  to  the  days  of  the  Judges.  Or 
take  the  elegy  of  David  over  Saul  and  Jonathan,  which 
has  been  hitherto  regarded  by  practically  every  critic 
as  an  undoubted  composition  from  the  hand  of  David. 
Professor  Lincke  of  Jena  believes  it  to  be  a  late  poem 

1  An  excellent  resume,  in  English,  for  the  arguments  of  these  more 
recent  positions  will  be  found  in  Kent's  "  History  of  the  Jewish  People," 
pp.  126-136,  195-204. 

2  "  Genesis,"  p.  431, 


52     OLD    TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

belonging  to  Northern  Israel.1  The  same  critic  also 
sees  in  the  Song  of  Deborah,  which  has  hitherto  been 
almost  unanimously  regarded  as  one  of  the  oldest 
poems,  if  not  the  very  oldest,  in  the  Bible,  a  master- 
piece from  the  golden  age  of  Ephraimitic  poetry. 

(B)  Let  us  now  briefly  consider  the  prophetical 
literature.  Here  it  might  seem  that  the  divergences 
could  not  be  so  numerous;  for  while  almost  all  the 
historical  books  are  anonymous,  and  the  door  for  the 
investigation  of  questions  of  date  and  authorship  is 
thus  left  open,  the  prophetical  books  have  usually 
superscriptions  which  would  seem  more  or  less  to 
settle  all  such  questions.  Naturally  everything  will 
depend  upon  whether  a  superscription  is  integral  to 
the  prophecy  or  not.  If  it  is  not,  then  the  book  itself 
must  be  interrogated  for  an  answer  to  all  such  prob- 
lems. And  here  both  questions  and  answers  arc 
legion.  The  question,  e.  #.,  "  Is  the  Book  of  Amos 
post-exilic  ? "  has  been  seriously  raised  in  the  "  Am- 
erican Journal  of  Semitic  Languages  and  Litera 
ture,"  2  and  answered  in  the  affirmative.  The  position 
was  at  once  denied  in  an  able  discussion  in  the  pages 
of  "  Bibliotheca  Sacra."  3  Again,  the  question  of  the 
exilic  authorship  of  most  of  Isaiah  xl.-lxvi.  was  till 
lately  regarded  as  practically  settled;  and  this  posi- 
tion seemed  so  overwhelmingly  convincing  that  it 

1  "  Zeitschrift    fur    wissenschaftliche    Theologie,"    October,  1901, 
p.  481  ff.   (essay  on  "The  Origin  of  Judaism"). 

2  January,  1902. 

8  April,  1902.  Though  this  is  not  strictly  an  instance  of  the  clash 
of  opinion  within  the  critical  school,  it  fairly  illustrates  the  general 
point  that  the  same  data,  examined  in  a  scientific  spirit  by  different 
minds,  may  lead  to  very  different  conclusions. 


CONFUSIONS   OF    CRITICISM      53 

was  accepted  by  a  tolerably  large  number  who  count 
themselves  conservatives  on  other  questions.  Within 
the  last  year,  however,  the  whole  question  has  again 
been  raised  by  Rev.  W.  H.  Cobb  in  the  "  Journal  of 
Biblical  Literature,"1  and  the  traditional  Isaianic 
authorship  has  been  ably  defended.  The  arguments 
were  promptly  attacked  by  Konig  in  the  pages  of  the 
" Expository  Times."2 

Many  questions  of  the  highest  importance  raised 
by  the  prophetic  literature  receive  the  most  diverse 
answers.  One  of  the  most  interesting  and  pressing 
of  those  questions  is  the  authenticity  of  the  Messianic 
passages  —  using  the  word  "  Messianic  "  in  the  larger 
sense.  Is  the  bright  outlook  that  occasionally  breaks 
across  the  sombre  pages  of  an  Amos  or  a  Hosea  really 
part  of  the  vision  and  the  message  of  those  prophets, 
or  is  it  an  interpolation  born  of  the  yearnings  of  a 
later  day  ?  Obviously  this  would  be  a  very  important 
question  in  the  discussion  of  the  history  of  Israel's 
religion;  and  there  are  excellent  scholars  on  both 
sides.  An  eminent  scholar8  in  a  monograph  on 

1  Vol.  xx.,  1901,  pt.  1.     On  "Integrating  the  Book  of  Isaiah." 

2  December,  1901.    In  reply,  Cobb  summarized  his  argument  for  the 
early  date  in  the  "Expository  Times"  of  March,  1902.     His  chief 
points  are  as  follows :  (i)  The  prophecy  is  addressed  to  comfort  the 
cities  of  Judah    after   the    invasion   of    Sennacherib   (ch.   xxxvii.). 
(ii)  The  polemic  against  idolatry  is  intelligible   in  Hezekiah's  time, 
(iii)  The  mixed  conditions  implied  by  chs.  Ivii.,  Ixv.,  Ixvi.  are  ex- 
plained by  divisions  of  parties  in  Northern  Israel  (2  Chr.  xxx.)  and 
the  influx  of  foreign  colonists  (2  Kings  xvii.).     (iv)  The  reference  to 
Cyrus  in  xlv.  1  is  interpolated,  and  in  xliv.  28  perhaps  a  gloss.     The 
references  to  Babylon  might  apply  to  Sennacherib's  campaign  against 
Merodach  Baladan,  and  the  whole   might  have  been  several  times 
edited,     (v)  Argument  from  style  and  diction  proves  little. 

a  Volz. 


54     OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

"  Pre-exilic  Jehovah-prophecy  and  the  Messiah  "  re- 
gards practically 1  all  the  Messianic  references  in  the 
pre-exilic  prophets  as  interpolations.  The  extent  to 
which  interpolation  is  supposed  to  have  affected  the 
prophets  may  be  seen  by  a  glance  through  the  trans- 
lation in  sucli  a  book  as  Nowack's  "  Commentary  on 
the  Minor  Prophets,"  where  the  passages  believed  to 
be  late  are  printed  in  italics. 

Who  is  the  suffering  servant  in  the  latter  part  of 
Isaiah  ?  On  this,  one  of  the  most  fascinating  of  all 
Old  Testament  problems,  opinion  is  very  seriously 
divided.  Some  take  the  servant  to  be  in  every  case 
a  personification,  and  to  have  a  collective  reference 
to  the  nation  or  the  worthy  element  in  the  nation. 
Others,  while  believing  that  this  is  true  in  the  main, 
yet  hold  that  the  subject  of  the  four  poetical  pieces, 
xlii.  1-4  or  7,  xlix.  1-6, 1.  4-9,  and  Hi.  13-liii.  12,  is 
an  individual.  Again,  among  those  who  believe  that 
the  reference  is  to  an  individual,  many  are  the  conjec- 
tures as  to  his  identity.  One  scholar  holds  him  to  be 
a  martyr  scribe  of  the  Maccabean  age.  Others  regard 
him  as  some  great  unknown  saint  who  seemed,  like 
Jeremiah,  to  incarnate  in  his  own  person  the  sorrow 
of  his  generation.  On  this  question  Sellin  was  led  to 
change  an  opinion  he  had  carefully  formed  and  skil- 
fully defended.  In  his  book  on  Zerubbabel  he  had 
argued  that  that  prince  was  the  servant;  in  his 
"  History  of  the  Origin  of  the  Jewish  Church  after 
the  Babylonian  Exile"  he  still  contends  for  a  per- 
sonal reference,  but  he  now  believes  that  the  person 
is  Jehoiachin. 

1  The  Messianic  idea,  he  holds,  appears  first  in  Ezekiel. 


CONFUSIONS    OF    CRITICISM      55 

(C)  Numerous  problems  are  scattered  over  the 
remaining  books  of  the  Old  Testament.  In  some 
ways,  that  of  the  Psalter  is  the  most  intricate.  Many 
are  familiar  with  Wellhausen's  famous  dictum  that 
the  question  is  not  whether  the  Psalter  contains  any 
post-exilic  psalms,  but  whether  it  contains  any  pre- 
exilic.  In  1889,  Professor  Cheyne  believed  the  whole 
Psalter,  with  the  exception  of  Psalm  xviii.,  to  be  post- 
exilic.  Duhm1  even  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  no 
psalm,  in  his  opinion,  is  demonstrably  as  early  as  the 
Persian  period  ;  most  of  the  Psalter  he  would  relegate 
to  the  third  and  second  centuries,  some  of  it  even  to 
the  first;  and  yet  Baethgen,  though  he  admits2  that 
the  historical  situations  presupposed  compel  us  to 
regard  by  far  the  larger  half  of  the  Psalter  as  post- 
exilic,  can  find  it  possible  to  believe  that  between 
thirty  and  forty  psalms  date  from  the  time  of  the 
monarchy.  So  Kautzsch  :  "  The  present  Psalter  con- 
tains in  all  probability  a  tolerable  number  of  pre-exilic 
songs  or  fragments."  3  The  utmost  variety  of  opinion 
is  also  entertained  with  regard  to  the  so-called  Macca- 
bean  psalms.  While  some  would  crowd  the  Maccabean 
period  with  psalms,  Baethgen  contents  himself  with 
saying4  that  the  impossibility  of  Maccabean  psalms 

1  "  Die  Psalmen,"  p.  xix. 

2  "  Die  Psalmen,"  p.  xxiv.     The  first  Psalm  affords  striking  illus- 
tration of  the  divergence  of  critical  opinion.     Duhm  thinks   that  it 
probably  belongs  to  the  first  century  B  c. ;  Baethgen  sets  it  between 
622  and  597  B.  c. 

8  "  Abriss,"  p.  127.  Cf.  Sanday,  "  Inspiration,"  p  251.  "  I  cannot 
think  that  it  has  been  at  all  proved  that  there  was  no  psalmody  in  the 
first  temple."  This,  too,  is  the  main  contention  of  Robertson's  "  Poetry 
and  Religion  of  the  Psalms." 


56     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

cannot  be  proved,  though  he  himself  is  ready  to  claim 
only  four  with  certainty  —  44,  74,  79,  and  83  —  and 
a  few  others  with  probability. 

When  we  pass  from  the  larger  question  of  the  Psal- 
ter to  the  examination  of  individual  psalms,  we  are 
confronted  by  the  same  unsatisfactory  divergence  of 
opinion.  If  any  psalm  has  been  confidently  assigned 
to  a  particular  date,  it  is  the  forty-sixth  Psalm.  The 
words  of  Bredenkamp l  express  the  general  opinion 
that  it  was  "  without  doubt  a  song  of  triumph  sung 
after  the  defeat  of  Sennacherib."  Gunkel,  on  the 
other  hand,  interprets  the  psalm  eschatologically : 2 
Zion  is  the  ideal  Zion  of  the  latter  days,  and  the  stream 
which  makes  her  glad  is  the  stream  of  Paradise. 
Peters,3  again,  ingeniously  refers  at  least  the  first  two 
stanzas  of  the  psalm  (verses  2-7),  together  with  Psalm 
xlii.,  to  the  temple  at  Dan  in  the  north  of  Israel. 

Again,  take  the  twentieth  Psalm,  one  of  the  "  royal " 
psalms  scattered  throughout  the  Psalter.  Who  is  the 
king  ?  Is  he  an  historical  or  an  ideal  figure  ?  and  if 
an  historical  figure,  is  he  to  be  identified  with  Zerub- 
babel,  as  Sellin  suggests,4  or  with  Josiah,  on  the  eve 
of  his  campaign  against  Pharaoh  Necho,  as  McCurdy 
suggests,5  or  with  some  one  else  ? 

Again,  take  the  thirty-third  Psalm.  Cheyne6  re- 
gards this  as  probably  Maccabean,  while  Baethgen, 
though  he  does  not  dogmatize  in  favor  of  a  definite 

1  "  Gesetz  und  Propheten,"  p.  144. 

2  "Genesis,"  pp.  32,  33;  also  "Biblical  World,"  January,  1903, 
pp.  28-31. 

8  "The  Old  Testament  and  the  New  Scholarship,"  p.  173. 
4  "  Serubbabel,"  p.  189. 

6  "History,  Prophecy,  and  the  Monuments,"  vol.  iii.  p.  165. 
8  "  Origin  of  the  Psalter,"  p.  195. 


CONFUSIONS   OF   CRITICISM 


57 


historical  situation,  says  that  it  is  "  at  any  rate  pre-ex- 
ilic."  In  other  words,  there  is  a  difference  of  half 
a  millennium  between  the  dates  assigned  by  two 
scholars  whose  general  critical  principles  are,  in  the 
main,  the  same. 

Or  again,  take  the  one  hundred  and  twenty-first 
Psalm.  It  is  regarded  by  some  as  a  psalm  of  the 
exile,1  the  hills  being  those  to  which  in  imagination 
the  Psalmist  lifted  up  his  eyes  from  the  monotonous 
plains  of  Babylonia  ;  and  it  is  usually  held  that  the  so- 
called  Psalms  of  Ascent,  or  Pilgrim  Psalms,  of  which 
this  is  one,  are  as  a  whole  a  post-exilic  collection. 
But  an  able  argument  has  been  advanced  by  Dean 
Walker2  in  favor  of  a  pre-exilic  date.  The  psalm, 
he  argues,  is  possibly  connected  with  the  reformation 
of  King  Josiah.  Neither  the  sun,  nor  the  moon, 
whose  high  places  Josiah  had  destroyed  (2  Kings 
xxiii.  5),  would  in  any  way  hurt  those  who  faithfully 
clung  to  the  worship  of  Jehovah.  On  either  view,  the 
discovery  of  an  historic  background  adds  considerable 
color  and  interest  to  the  psalm. 

The  problems  of  the  Psalter  are  by  no  means  con- 
fined to  chronological  questions.  Often  they  affect 
the  interpretation  of  the  contents.  For  example, 
there  cannot  be  said  to  be  any  universal,  though  there 
may  be  a  general,  agreement  in  the  interpretation  of 
the  references  to  sacrifice  in  Psalms  xl.,  1.,  and  li. 
Kautzsch  regards  these  psalms  as  pre-exilic,3  because 
psalms  containing  such  an  energetic  protest  against 

1  Cf.  G.  A.  Smith,  "  Expositor's  Bible,"  Isaiah,  vol.  ii.  p.  14. 

2  "  Journal  of  Biblical  Literature,"  vol.  xvii,  1898,  pt.  2,  pp.  205, 206. 

3  "  Abriss,"  127. 


58     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

the  necessity  of  sacrifice  could  hardly  have  found 
entrance  into  the  temple  hymnal,  had  their  age  not 
already  invested  them  with  something  like  canoni- 
cal authority.  Now  only  last  year,  in  a  careful  dis- 
cussion of  "  The  Psalms  and  the  Temple  Service,"  l 
Professor  Matthes  of  Amsterdam  denies  that  the 
Psalms  contain  any  such  protest.  The  conservative 
wing  of  critical  scholarship  naturally  takes  this  view 
of  such  psalms.2 

The  differences  which  characterize  critical  opinion 
on  the  Psalter,  equally  characterize  it  in  other  books. 
Toy,  e.g.,  regards  300  B.C.  as  the  upper  limit  for  the 
Book  of  Proverbs,  the  completion  falling  in  the  sec- 
ond century  B.  c.3  Graf  Baudissin,on  the  other  hand, 
is  quite  confident  that  parts  of  the  book  go  back  to 
pre-exilic  times.4 

The  date  of  the  Book  of  Job  has  long  been  a  bone 
of  contention  among  the  critics.  It  has  been  the 
fashion  recently  to  regard  the  book  as  the  product  of 
the  exile.  Budde,  however,  puts  the  date  provisionally 
about  400  B.  c.,5  and  there  is  a  growing  tendency  to 
regard  the  book  as  late  rather  than  early.  It  is  there- 
fore all  the  more  surprising  to  find  a  scholar  who  is 
in  general  sympathy  with  the  principles  of  modern 
criticism  giving  expression  to  the  following  opinion, 
though  he  adopts  the  triple  safeguard  of  parentheses, 
italics,  and  point  of  interrogation:  "Job.  Circa 

1  "  Zeitschrift  fur  die  alttestamentliche  Wissenschaft,"  1902,  pp. 
65-82. 

2  Cf.  Bredenkamp,  "  Gesetz  und  Propheten,"  pp.  59-63. 

8  "International  Critical  Commentary,  Proverbs,"  pp.  xix-xxxi. 
*  « Theologische  Literaturzeitung,"  1898,  No.  7  (April  2). 
6  "  Handkommentar  zum  Alten  Testament,  Hiob,"  p.  xlv. 


CONFUSIONS   OF   CRITICISM      59 

625  (?)  (It  is  just  possible,  however,  that  it  belongs 
to  the  Patriarchal  Age)."1 

Another  interesting  and  not  yet  settled  question  is 
the  age  and  authenticity  of  the  prologue  and  epilogue 
to  this  book.  If  the  book  as  a  whole  is  post-exilic, 
are  these  of  a  piece  with  it,  or  are  they  older  ?  Some 
scholars  believe  that  both  those  sections  come  from  a 
pre-exilic  Book  of  Job.  The  younger  Kautzsch,  after 
an  examination  of  the  linguistic  features  and  the 
religious  conceptions  of  these  sections  (cf.  angels, 
Satan)  assigns  them  to  a  post-exilic  date.2 

There  has  long  been  a  fierce  controversy  between 
the  opposing  schools  with  regard  to  the  date  and  his- 
toricity of  Daniel ;  but  for  a  considerable  time  there 
has  been  little  or  no  discord  in  the  ranks  of  the  critics 
themselves,  among  whom  the  accepted  date  of  the 
book  is  about  168  or  167  B.  c.  There  is  an  admirable 
and  educative  statement  by  Dr.  Selbie  of  the  reasons 
for  this  view  in  the  "  Critical  Review "  for  March, 
1902.3  An  interesting  and  useful  discussion  in  sup- 
port of  the  critical  view  of  the  book  will  be  found  in 
the  fifteenth  chapter  of  Peters'  "Old  Testament  and 
the  New  Scholarship."  But  even  this  view,  which 
had  come  to  be  regarded  as  an  almost  established 
fact,  was  recently  challenged  by  Mr.  Johnstone  in 
the  "  Expository  Times,"  4  who  urged  against  it  some 
not  unimportant  considerations. 

1  Mackay,  "  The  Churchman's  Introduction  to  the  Old  Testament," 
p.  297. 

2  "  Das  sogenannte  Volksbuch  von  Hiob." 

8  By  a  singular  coincidence,  a  very  elaborate  defence  of  the  tradi- 
tional view  from  the  pen  of  Principal  Douglas  appeared  a  month  after- 
wards in  "Presbyterian  and  Reformed  Review  "  (April,  1902),  224  ff. 

4  May,  1902,  p.  383.    "  Every  scrap  of  evidence  we  possess,  apart 


60     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

These  divergences,  to  which  attention  has  just 
been  called,  do  not  by  any  means  exhaust  the  actual 
divergences  prevailing  among  the  critics ;  nor  are 
they  perhaps  even  the  most  serious.  One  lays  much 
stress  upon  tradition ;  another  less,  perhaps  none. 
One  believes  Abraham  to  be  an  historical  character  ; 
another  asserts  that  such  a  belief  argues  lack  of  liter- 
ary appreciation.  One  believes  that  the  covenant  at 
Sinai  is  a  later  idealization  of  the  relation  between 
Jehovah  and  His  people ;  another  believes  in  it  as  an 
historical  fact.  One  believes  that  the  history  of 
Israel  may  be  fairly  said  to  start  with  Abraham; 
another,  that  we  have  no  historical  ground  beneath 
our  feet  till  we  come  to  Moses ;  another,  that  David 
is  the  first  character  who  stands  in  the  full  light  of 
history ;  another,  that  some  of  the  tales  even  about 
him  are  astral  myths.  One  believes  in  the  superT 
natural ;  another  doubts  or  ignores  it.  One  believes 
that  the  prophets  were  reformers  who  continued  and 
developed  the  positive  truth  revealed  to  Moses ;  an- 
other, that  they  were  really  innovators  —  in  the 
now  famous  phrase  "  the  creators  of  ethical  mono- 
theism "  —  that  it  was  they  and  not  Moses  who  cre- 
ated the  religion  of  Israel.  Indeed,  from  some  points 
of  view  this  is  the  most  fundamental  problem  of  the 
Old  Testament,  —  whether  there  is  or  is  not  a  breach 
between  the  pre-prophetic  and  the  prophetic  religion. 

It  may  be  frankly  confessed  that  these  differences 
are  bewildering  enough,  and  that  they  do  not  create 
a  prima  facie  probability  for  the  validity  of  critical 

from  theories  as  to  prophecy,  points,  and  points  strongly,  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  our  Daniel  must  have  been  compiled  before  300  B.  c." 


CONFUSIONS   OF    CRITICISM      61 

methods.  It  would  be  easy,  however,  to  close  the  lips 
of  the  adversary  by  an  argumentum  ad  hominem.  It 
would  be  a  simple  matter  to  point  out,  as  we  have  in 
part  done,  that  the  ranks  of  the  opponents  of  criti- 1 
cism  do  not  present  a  solid  front  any  more  than  do 
the  ranks  of  the  critics  themselves.  One  concedes  the 
compositeness  of  Genesis  as  inevitable ;  another  de- 
nies it  as  a  ridiculous  impossibility.  One  asserts  that 
the  Book  of  Chronicles  is  as  reliable  as  the  Book  of 
Kings  ;  another  admits  that  its  unsupported  statements 
must  be  received  with  caution.  One  believes  that  the 
Book  of  Daniel  is  a  transcript  of  historic  fact ;  another 
finds  it,  in  many  essential  respects,  unhistorical.  One 
believes  that  the  Book  of  Ecclesiastes  is  the  work  of 
Solomon ;  another  allows  that,  if  that  be  so,  there  is 
no  history  of  the  Hebrew  language.  And  so  on.  It 
would  be  easy  to  show  that  there  is  not  much  more 
real  unanimity  on  the  part  of  the  opponents  than  of 
the  supporters  of  the  critical  movement.  If  it  be 
urged  that  these  differences  touch  only  minor  points, 
that  could  be  denied ;  for  surely  credibility  is  not  a 
minor  point.1  But  in  any  case  the  argument,  as  an 
argument,  falls  to  the  ground ;  for  it  is  open  to  reply 
that  the  principles  which  produce  such  discrepancies 
cannot  themselves  be  sound.  Such  an  argumentum 

1  One  must,  of  course,  admit  in  fairness  that  the  majority  of  the 
school  would  not  go  so  far  as  Sayce  in  his  view  of  Chronicles  or  Daniel. 
The  Tract  Committee  of  the  S.  P.  C.  K.  make  it  quite  clear  in  their 
preface  that,  in  publishing  Sayce's  "  Higher  Criticism  and  the  Monu- 
ments," they  are  not  to  be  understood  as  committing  the  Society  to  all 
the  opinions  expressed  in  it.  All  the  same,  Sayce  is  often  put  forth  as 
the  protagonist  of  the  opposing  movement,  and  his  word  is  regarded 
by  the  opponents  of  criticism  as  final  in  questions  affecting  the  relation 
of  archaeology  to  criticism. 


62     OLD    TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

ad  hominem  would  be  easy,  but  it  would  not  be  worth 
while.  It  will  be  more  profitable  to  try  to  account 
for  the  phenomenon  observable  among  both  parties  of 
the  controversy  —  that  good  and  wise  men  even  on 
the  same  side  differ  among  themselves. 

The  explanation  may  lie  in  either  or  in  both  of  two 
^directions :  either  the  principles  are  faulty,  or  the 
facts  are  few.  Now,  what  the  critical  principles  and 
methods  are  we  shall  have  occasion  hereafter  to  dis- 
cuss and  illustrate ;  meantime  it  may  be  enough  to 
remark  that  one  who  objects  to  those  principles  or  to 
any  principles,  assumes,  for  his  own  judgment,  another 
standard ;  and  this  assumption  he  must  be  prepared 
to  justify,  on  penalty  of  failing  to  convince  his  oppo- 
nent. Every  objection  postulates  an  implicit,  and 
very  often  unjustified  —  we  do  not  say  unjustifiable 

—  criterion. 

But  what  seems  to  be  too  often  forgotten  through- 
out the  whole  controversy  is  the  comparative  paucity 
of  the  data,  our  almost  total  absence  of  information 
about  events  and  movements  of  the  very  highest  im- 
portance. Is  it  not  obvious  that  such  extraordinary 
divergence  of  opinion  in  so  many  departments  would 
be  impossible,  if  the  data  were  less  meagre  and  am- 
biguous ?  What  do  we  know,  for  example,  of  Jehon- 
adab,  the  son  of  Rechab  ?  He  is  accorded  only  a 
verse  or  two ; l  yet  we  know  2  that  he  represented  a 
movement  of  great  importance  and  some  influence  in 
the  religion  of  Israel.  What  precisely  did  the  guilds 
or  "  schools  "  —  as  they  are  not  quite  correctly  called 

—  of  the  prophets  do  or  believe  or  teach  ?    What  do 

l  3  Kings  x.  15  ff.  2  Cf.  Jer.  xxxv. 


CONFUSIONS   OF    CRITICISM      63 

we  really  know  of  the  so-called  "  false  "  prophets,  and 
where  are  we  to  look  for  a  sympathetic  treatment  of 
them  ?  What  do  we  know,  unless  by  inference,  of  the 
spiritual  and  intellectual  life  of  the  exiles  in  Babylo- 
nia? What  do  we  know  of  the  period  of  seventy 
years  or  so  between  the  building  of  the  second  tem- 
ple and  the  preaching  of  Malachi  ?  In  our  historical 
records  it  is  an  almost  absolute  blank,  though  we 
know  by  inference  that  it  must  have  been  a  time  of 
tragic  importance.  These  gaps  in  our  knowledge  are 
undeniable :  how  are  we  to  fill  them  in  ?  for  the  his- 
torical instinct,  believing  in  the  continuity  of  history, 
impels  us  to  discover,  where  possible,  the  progress  of 
events.  Our  sources  are  lamentably  meagre,  and  we 
have  to  make  the  most  of  them.  Is  it  any  wonder 
that  one  man  interprets  an  event  or  a  movement  in 
this  way,  and  another  in  that  ?  Doubtless  it  may  be 
urged  that  his  interpretation  is  controlled  by  an  ante- 
cedent bias.  That  may  be.  Whose  interpretation  is 
not  controlled  by  some  bias  ? :  But  the  point  is  that 
the  paucity  of  the  facts  leaves  it  open  to  him  to  put 
his  own  interpretation  upon  them  in  perfect  good 
faith.  As  a  rule,  the  more  numerous  the  facts,  the 
more  restricted  will  be  their  possible  interpretation. 

Contrast,  for  a  moment,  Hebrew  literature  with 
Greek,  in  point  of  bulk.  Contrast  the  elaborate  his- 
tories of  Herodotus  and  Thucydides  with  the  brief 
narratives  in  the  Book  of  Kings,  which  often  dismiss 
great  reigns  and  important  movements  in  a  word  or 
two,  and  not  seldom  leave  their  importance  to  be 

1  This  point  is  discussed  more  fully  in  the  chapter  on  "  Criticism 
and  the  Supernatural,"  pp.  233 — 235, 


64     OLD    TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

inferred.  Contrast  the  philosophical  literature  of 
Greece  with  the  prophetical  literature  of  the  Hebrews, 
and  add,  if  you  like,  the  wisdom  books.  The  influence 
of  Amos  or  Hosea  on  Hebrew  religious  thought  was 
doubtless  as  profound,  or  nearly  so,  as  that  of  Plato 
on  Greek  speculation ;  yet  the  extant  literary  work  of 
either  of  those  prophets  would  only  cover  a  fraction 
of  a  single  book  of  the  "  Republic."  And  for  obtaining 
an  insight  into  contemporary  feeling,  what  are  we  to 
compare  with  the  criticisms  of  the  witty  Aristophanes, 
who  lashes  in  turn  contemporary  literature,  philosophy, 
and  politics?  It  is  surely  obvious  that  the  man  who 
would  sketch  the  history  of  the  Hebrew  people  or 
their  religion  is  at  an  enormous  disadvantage.  To 
say  nothing  of  the  inherent  difficulty  of  the  sources  — 
a  difficulty  which  the  most  superficial  study  cannot 
ignore  l  —  the  sources  themselves  are  so  meagre  that 
the  recorded  facts  are  often  fairly  capable  of  more 
interpretations  than  one,  and  a  use  of  conjecture,  or 
of  what  has  been  called  the  historical  imagination, 
is  inevitable.  What  use  the  historian  or  critic  will 
actually  make  of  those  things  will  depend  upon  many 
considerations  —  his  temperament,  his  education,  his 
philosophical  standpoint,  and  so  on ;  but  it  should  not 
be  ignored  that  it  is  the  scantiness  of  his  material 
that  leads  him  to  have  recourse  to  those  perilous 
helps,  and  that  is,  therefore,  indirectly  responsible 
for  the  divergences  which  all  must  deplore,  but 
some  of  which  will,  in  all  probability,  continue  to 
remain. 

1  Cf.  the  two  accounts  of  the  origin  of  the  kingdom  in  the  Book  of 
Samuel,  or  of  David's  first  meeting  with  Saul. 


CONFUSIONS   OF    CRITICISM      65 

This  margin  of  inevitable  uncertainty  is  often  con- 
ceded by  opponents  of  the  critical  school.  Volck,1 
after  an  elaborate  argument  to  prove  that  the  picture 
of  the  religious  development  of  Israel,  "  according  to 
the  hypothesis  of  the  new  school,"  is  impossible, 
adds,  "  I  am  far  from  supposing  that  my  discussion 
has  succeeded  in  finally  invalidating  all  the  objec- 
tions hitherto  raised  to  the  traditional  conception  of 
Old  Testament  history,  in  removing  all  the  resulting 
difficulties,  or  in  solving  all  the  riddles."  Breden- 
kamp,2  too,  after  showing  that  there  is  a  high  proba- 
bility that  the  law  of  the  centralization  of  the  worship 
was  known  in  Hosea's  time,  admits  that  it  cannot  be 
absolutely  proved,  and  adds  that  "  often  in  the  Old 
Testament  we  cannot  attain  more  than  probability." 
Dr.  Green  also  admits  that  "  a  few  puzzles  remain 
insoluble  by  us."3 

Every  one  who  has  ever  tried  carefully  to  concate- 
nate the  facts  presented  by  the  Old  Testament  is 
compelled  to  admit  that  there  is  a  good  deal  about 
which  it  would  not  be  safe  to  dogmatize  ;  and  many 
of  the  critics  have  expressed  themselves  with  the  most 
becoming  reserve  —  though  they  have  not  always  got 
credit  for  it  —  especially  with  regard  to  the  more  ob- 
scure and  difficult  detail.  The  most  ardent  advocate 
of  the  Documentary  Hypothesis,  says  one  of  the  most 
recent  commentators  on  Genesis,  "  would  hardly  claim 
that  it  is  absolutely  perfect.  He  would  doubtless  ad- 
mit that,  at  this  distance  from  the  period  of  the  origin 

1  "Heilige  Schrift  und  Kritik,"  p.  187. 

2  "Gesetz  und  Propheten,"  p.  157. 

8  Munhall,  "  Anti-Higher  Criticism,"  p.  88, 
5 


66     OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

of  the  Pentateuch,  it  is  too  much  to  expect  to  be  able 
to  unravel  to  the  last  thread  the  history  of  its  com- 
pilation, and  that  therefore  one  must  not  be  surprised 
if  the  accepted  theory  js  not  applicable  without  excep- 
tions." l  Again  and  again  Gunkel  emphasizes  the 
hypothetical  nature  of  some  of  his  results,  especially 
in  the  sphere  of  documentary  analysis.  In  his  an- 
alysis of  the  Paradise  story  2  he  requests  that  no  one 
overlook  the  reserve  with  which  his  conjectures  are 
advanced.  He  is  not,  he  tells  us  elsewhere  in  his  dis- 
cussion of  Gen.  xli.,  "  under  the  illusion  of  having 
attained  certainty :  on  such  difficult  and  complicated 
ground  one  must  be  satisfied  to  attain  probability."  3 
In  a  striking  passage  4  he  emphasizes  the  great  diffi- 
culty of  chronologically  fixing  spiritual  processes, 
"  We  know  ancient  Israel  too  little  to  be  able  to 
speak  with  certainty."  No  doubt  many  of  the  critics 
have  been  unduly  dogmatic,  just  as  many  of  their 
opponents  have  been  ;  but  it  would  be  unfair  to  over- 

1  Mitchell,  "  The  World  before  Abraham/'  p.  68. 

2  "  Genesis,"  p.  22  ;  cf.  p.  229. 

3  p.  393.     This  is  the  real  answer  to  snch  a  charge  as  that  of  Dr. 
John  Smith  ("The  Integrity  of  Scripture,"  p.  119),  that  "  the  possession 
of  virtual  omniscience"  is  ''calmly  assumed  in  the  literary  analysis  of 
the  Old  Testament."     So  far  from  that  being  the  case,  Driver  (in  com- 
mon with  most  of  the  critics)  believes  that  with  the  exception  of  the 
sections  which  belong  to  the  priestly  code,  the  analysis  (from  the  nature 
of  the  criteria  on  which  it  depends)  is  frequently  uncertain,  and  will 
perhaps  always   continue  so    (Introduction,    xiv,   xv).      He   therefore 
often  assigns  a  section  to  the  composite  document  known  as  J  E,  just 
because  he  does  not  feel  able  to  assign  it  definitely  to  one  or  other 
of  the  constituent  documents,  J  and  E.     So  Kautzsch  queries  quite  a 
number  of  verses  in  his  analysis  as  doubtful.    Cf.  Bacon's  "  Genesis  of 
Genesis,"  p.  xxix,  "  There  will  always  be  a  remainder  which  defies  our 
analysis"  (G.  F.  Moore). 

*  "  Genesis,"  p.  Ixi. 


CONFUSIONS   OF    CRITICISM      67 

look  such  direct  and  explicit  testimony  as  has  just 
been  adduced,  and  could  easily  be  multiplied  tenfold. 
There  are  some,  if  not  many,  on  both  sides  of  the 
controversy,  who,  under  the  constraint  of  fact,  would 
be  willing  to  admit  with  Professor  Terry  that  "  some 
of  the  main  points  at  issue  are  of  such  a  nature  as  not 
now  to  admit  of  final  settlement."  l  To  the  scholars 
who  have  been  over  all  the  ground  nothing  is  so  cer- 
tain as  that  there  is  much  that  is  uncertain.  In  his 
discussion  of  the  date  of  Habakkuk,  the  late  Professor 
Davidson  remarks2  "how  precarious  it  is  to  draw  in- 
ferences as  to  the  date  of  a  passage  or  a  writing  solely 
from  the  ideas  which  it  contains.  The  literature  is 
far  too  scanty  to  enable  us  to  trace  the  course  of  re- 
ligious thought  and  language  with  any  such  certainty 
as  to  fix  the  dates  at  which  particular  ideas  or  ex- 
pressions arose." 

The  very  divergences  of  the  critics  enable  them  to 
act  as  a  constant  check  upon  each  other.  Every  im- 
portant book  receives  the  most  minute  and  searching 
attention,  either  in  subsequent  books  or  in  the  great 
theological  magazines,  especially  of  Germany.  No 
critic  has  it  all  his  own  way.  His  interpretations 
are  subjected  to  the  severest  tests.  One  is  regarded 
as  too  finical,  another  as  too  modern.  One  of  the 
most  recent  commentators  on  Jeremiah  criticises  an- 
other for  being  capricious  and  fanciful.3  A  recent 
commentator  on  Chronicles  is  taken  to  task  for  his 
unnecessary  emendations  of  the  text.4  Only  last 

1  "Moses  and  the  Prophets,"  p.  112. 

2  Cambridge  Bible,  "  Nahum,"  etc.,  p.  62. 

3  "  Theologische  Literaturzeitung,"  26  April,  1902. 
*  Id.,  9  Nov.  1901. 


68     OLD    TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

year  Professor  Konig  of  Bonn  published  a  little  book 
entitled  «  The  Most  Recent  Principles  of  Old  Tes- 
tament Criticism  examined,"  l  in  which  he  attacks, 
among  other  things,  the  undue  emphasis  laid  by  cer- 
tain scholars  on  style  and  metre  in  the  determination 
of  text  and  authenticity,  and  vigorously  combats  the 
view  taken  by  Stade,  Gunkel,  and  others  of  the  pa- 
triarchal stories.  To  this  we  shall  return.  Perhaps 
the  best  known  scientific  protest  in  English  against 
the  more  radical  school  of  criticism  is  Robertson's 
"  Early  Religion  of  Israel." 

No  great  movement  is  ever  wholly  in  vain.  The 
truth  that  was  in  it  is  lifted  up  and  carried  on.  As 
critic  keeps  watch  upon  critic,  it  is  reasonable  to  ex- 
pect an  ever  closer  approximation  to  the  truth.  This 
expectation  is  all  the  more  reasonable  that  we  notice 
signs  of  what  we  might  call  a  conservative  reaction,  if 
that  phrase  were  not  so  much  in  danger  of  being  mis- 
understood. By  that  we  do  not  mean  that  any  of  the 
critics  are  returning  to  the  belief  that  Moses  wrote  the 
whole  of  the  Pentateuch  or  David  half  the  Psalter ; 
but  that  more  respect  is  being  paid  to  the  testimony 
of  the  Bible  to  itself,  with  the  result  that  the  possi- 
bilities of  pre-exilic  and  even  pre-prophetic  times  are 
far  more  highly  estimated  than  they  have  usually  been 
by  the  hitherto  dominant  school  of  criticism.  The 
conjecture  which  Professor  Sanday  made  about  ten 
years  ago,2  that  "  the  criticism  of  the  near  future  is 
likely  to  be  more  conservative  in  its  tendency  than  it 
has  been,  or  at  least  to  do  fuller  justice  to  the  positive 

1  "  Neueste  Priuzipien  der  alttestamentlichen  Kritik  gepriift." 

2  "  Inspiration,"  p.  xii. 


CONFUSIONS   OF   CRITICISM      69 

data  than  it  has  done,"  though  it  seems  to  be  belied 
by  the  general  spirit  and  results  of  the  "  Encyclopaedia 
Biblica,"  has,  in  the  main,  been  corroborated.  The 
work  of  Professor  Sellin  of  Vienna  can  hardly  fail  to 
be  without  its  influence.1  Here  again  the  recent 
commentary  of  Gunkel  on  "  Genesis  "  is  of  the  pro- 
foundest  significance.  The  latest  document  in  the 
Pentateuch,  which  it  has  been  too  much  the  fashion  to 
regard  as  practically  a  work  of  the  priestly  imagina- 
tion, he  holds  to  rest,  in  part,  upon  a  much  older 
source,  and  to  contain  some  very  ancient  material 
even  in  the  historical  portions,  as  in  the  Creation  and 
Flood  stories.2  Again,  the  narratives  in  the  earlier 
documents,  many  of  which  are  commonly  supposed  to 
have  arisen  during  the  time  of  the  monarchy,  he  be- 
lieves to  be  in  reality  very  much  older.3  In  a  highly 
interesting  sentence  he  remarks :  "  After  earlier  ages 
had  found  every  possible  dogmatic  and  ethical  subtlety 
in  the  Old  Testament,  modern  investigators  have  often 
fallen  into  the  habit  of  painting  ancient  Israel  as 
crudely  as  possible ;  that  will  also  have  its  day."  4  In 
particular  he  returns  again  and  again  5  to  his  attack 
on  what  he  calls  the  one-sided  literary  criticism,  which 
considers  the  dates  merely  of  words  and  authors  and 
books,  and  forgets  how  long  a  history  the  material 
itself  may  have  had  before  it  received  literary  form. 
Here  again  the  insight  of  Professor  Sanday  has  been 
singularly  justified.  "  It  was  natural,"  he  said  in  his 

1  Cf.  especially  his  "  Beitrage,"  vol.  i. 

2  pp.  101,  102.    It  has  preserved,  e.  a.,  some  lines  of  ancient  poetry. 
Cf.  Gen.  vii.  1 1 ;  viii.  2. 

3  p.  xi.  4  p.  235.  *  pp.  30,  75,  117,  139,  341. 


yo     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

"  Bampton  Lectures," l  "  that  in  pursuing  a  perfectly 
unfettered  inquiry  and  correcting  one  by  one  the 
traditional  dates  of  documents  and  institutions,  there 
should  be  a  tendency  to  lay  too  much  stress  on  the 
first  mention  of  either ;  with  the  result  of  either  con- 
fusing that  first  mention  with  the  real  origin  of  the 
document  or  institution,  or  at  least  allowing  far  too 
little  for  growth  and  not  sufficiently  considering  what 
the  process  of  growth  involves.  This  is  a  direction 
in  which  it  would  seem  that  the  researches  of  the 
critical  school  will  bear  to  be  supplemented."  And 
supplemented  they  are  by  the  movement  of  which 
Gunkel  is  a  singularly  brilliant  exponent.  The  follow- 
ing well-weighed  words  of  his  should  be  taken  to  heart 
by  those  who  think  that  criticism  is  going  from  bad 
to  worse :  "  The  author  cannot  conceal  his  conviction 
that  the  present  prevalent  literary  criticism  has  been 
too  ready  to  declare  as  spurious  the  passages  which 
do  not  fit  into  its  construction  of  history,  or  which  are 
unintelligible  to  the  modern  investigator,  and  that  this 
period  of  criticism  must  necessarily  be  followed  by  a 
strong  reaction."  2 

The  errors  and  extravagances  of  criticism  will  be 
corrected  in  time  by  a  criticism  that  is  more  alert 
and  penetrating.3  Theories  whose  inadequacy  can  be 

1  "  Inspiration,"  p.  118. 

2  p.  113.     Incidentally  he  affirms  the  authenticity  of  Is.  xi.  6  ff.,  de- 
nied by  Hackmann  ;  of  Is.  xvii.  12-14,  denied  by  Stade ;  of  Is.  xxx.  7  b, 
denied  by  Duhm ;  of  Hos.  ii.  18,  deuied  by  Volz ;  and  he  suggests  a 
pre-exilic  date  for  other  passages  which  are  commonly  regarded  as  late ; 
cf.  Ps.  ex. ;  Num.  xxiv.  22,  24. 

8  Cf .  Sanday,  "  Oracles  of  God,"  p.  79.  "  Theology  is  becoming  far 
more  international  and  interconfessional.  .  .  .  Men  are  comparing 
notes  the  whole  world  over,  and  extravagances  and  aberrations  are 


CONFUSIONS   OF   CRITICISM      71 

proved  will  be  modified  or  rejected,  and  the  fittest  will 
survive.  But  to  suppose  that  the  whole  critical  move- 
ment is  invalidated  because  the  results  of  its  various 
supporters  are  not  unanimous  is  completely  to  mistake 
the  comparative  unanimity  that  prevails  in  many  of 
the  larger  issues,  and  in  the  attitude  to  the  critical  or 
historical  method  as  a  whole.  Two  blacks  do  not 
make  a  white.1  It  is  still  the  fashion  to-day,  as  it 
was  twenty  years  ago,  "  to  deride  the  Higher  Criticism 
as  the  mere  product  of  individual  caprice,  or  to  exag- 
gerate the  discrepancies  of  its  results,  and  to  imagine 
that  they  can  be  got  rid  of,  like  positive  and  negative 
quantities  in  an  equation,  by  setting  one  against  the 
other.  But  it  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  this  pro- 
cess, however  far  it  may  be  carried,  necessarily  makes 
for  the  traditional  view  of  things,  which  stands  or  falls 
by  itself,  and  must  meet  its  own  difficulties.  And 
criticism  is  making  its  sure  way  from  destruction  to  f 
construction,  from  negative  to  positive  results." 2 
There  is  much  that  is  still  uncertain  ;  there  is  much 

being  struck  off  on  this  side  and  on  that.     Before  this  great  tribunal, 
eccentricities  cannot  stand." 

1  Literary  criticism,  which  has  to  be  clearly  distinguished  from  spir- 
itual interpretation,  —  a  very  different  thing,  —  "is  a  perfectly  legiti- 
mate science,  with  a  profoundly  important  end  in  view  ;  and  ought  no 
more  to  be  discredited  than  any  other  science,  by  the  fact  that  its  vari- 
ous exponents  are  not  all  equally  wise,  nor  always  in  mutual  accord." 
Illingworth,  "  Personality  Human  and  Divine,"  p.  182. 

2  "  Hibbert  Lectures"  (1883),  p.  352.    The  words  of  Steuernagel  with 
regard  to  the  analysis  of  the  Hexateuch  are  worth  taking  to  heart,  and 
their  application  can  be  extended  :  "  In  by  far  the  largest  number  of 
cases  the  judgment  of  specialists  in  the  main  points  is  unanimous  ;  and 
for  this,  one  may  rightly  demand  the  same  recognition  from  the  non- 
expert as  he  would  willingly  accord  to  the  judgment  of  the  historians 
of  art "  ("  Allgemeine  Einleitung  "  at  the  end  of  his  Commentary  on 
Deuteronomy  and  Joshua,  p.  260). 


72     OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

that  may  never  be  certain  :  but  there  is  a  great  deal 
more  that  is  certain,  and  we  shall  conclude  by  briefly 
mentioning  some  of  the  positive  results  in  which  there 
is  practical  unanimity  amid  all  variety  of  critical 
opinion.  It  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  add  that  this 
unanimity,  though  it  is  usually  denied  by  the  oppo- 
nents of  the  critical  movement,  and  its  absence 
made  to  count  as  one  of  the  heaviest  indictments 
against  critical  methods,  is  yet  conceded  by  other 
opponents.  Bishop  Ellicott,  e.  g.y  frankly  acknowl- 
edges an  agreement,  remarkable  and  unexpected? 
between  men  whose  principles  differ  widely,  as  be- 
tween Delitzsch  and  Wellhausen,  or  Dillmann  and 
Kuenen.1 

What,  then,  are  the  things  which  are  most  surely 
believed  by  the  critics  ? 

(i)  The  compositeness  of  the  Hexateuch,  and,  in  a 
certain  sense,  of  all  the  historical  books.2  There  are, 
as  we  have  seen,  considerable  differences  in  the  dates 
to  which  critics  assign  the  various  documents ;  but 
that  there  are  various  documents  is  doubted  by  no 
one.  This  may  be  accepted  as  a  practically  irrefrag- 
able conclusion,  as  it  is  admitted,  at  least  for  the  Book 
of  Genesis,  by  many  opponents  of  criticism.  But  fur- 
ther, there  is  not  only  a  universal  agreement  as  to  the 
existence  and  the  number  of  the  documents  in  the 


1  "  Christus  Comprobator,"  p.  36. 

2  Fifty-five  years  apart,  llgen  (1798)  and  Hupfeld  (1853),  independ- 
ently reached  the  conclusion  that  there  were  two  documents  which 
used  the  word  Elohim  for  the  Divine  Being.     Old  Testament  criticism 
is  not  the  young  or  arbitrary  science  it  is  sometimes  supposed  to  be. 
The  lines  of  the  documentary  analysis  were  laid  down  one  hundred 
and  fifty  years  ago. 


CONFUSIONS   OF   CRITICISM      73 

Hexateuch  —  the  Jehovist,  the  Elohist,  Deuteronomy, 
and  the  Priestly  Code  (J,  E,  D,  and  P)  —  but  there  is 
a  harmony  which  is  nothing  less  than  astonishing  in 
the  assigning  of  the  various  chapters  and  verses  to 
their  respective  documentary  sources.  Any  one  may 
speedily  convince  himself  of  this  by  a  cursory  exam- 
ination of  the  conspectus  in  Holzinger's  "  Introduction 
to  the  Hexateuch,"  or,  if  he  have  only  English  books  at 
his  command,  by  comparing,  in  detail,  the  analysis  in 
Driver's  "  Introduction  "  with  that  in  Bacon's  "  Genesis 
of  Genesis  "  or  "  Triple  Tradition  of  the  Exodus."  The 
argument  cannot  be  turned,  as  is  often  attempted,  by 
saying  that  the  critics  swear  by  the  dictum  of  one  or 
two  of  their  great  leaders.  In  point  of  fact,  the  results 
are  very  often  reached  in  absolute  independence ;  and 
we  speak  from  experience  when  we  say  that  any  one 
who  has  once  entered  sympathetically  into  the  spirit 
and  principles  of  the  documentary  analysis  could  — 
especially  in  Genesis  —  relegate,  without  much  trouble, 
many  sections  to  their  documentary  source,  and  in 
doing  so  would  often  find  himself  in  agreement  with 
the  conclusions  of  the  scholars. 

(ii)  Another  result  —  strictly  speaking,  another  as- 
pect of  the  same  —  is  the  conclusion  that  there  are  in 
the  Pentateuch  three  legal  codes,  belonging  to  differ- 
ent periods  and  representing  different  stages  of  re- 
ligious development.  These  codes  are  the  Book  of 
the  Covenant  (Ex.  xx.  22-xxiii.  33)  ;  Deuteronomy ; 
and  the  Priestly  Code,  including  Leviticus,  together 
with  the  long  and  continuous  sections  of  Exodus  and 
Numbers  which  deal  with  the  priestly  legislation. 
The  codes  succeed  each  other  almost  certainly  in 


74     OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

this  order,  and  they  reveal  the  growing  predomi- 
nance of  priestly  interests. 

(iii)  The  Book  of  Deuteronomy  is  unanimously 
believed  to  be  connected  with  the  reformation  of 
Josiah,  as  cause  with  effect;  and  it  was  written,  if 
not  in  Josiah's  reign  —  which  we  need  not  suppose 
—  then  certainly  not  very  long  before  it,  most  prob- 
ably in  the  reign  of  Manasseh.  The  question  of  the 
date  of  Deuteronomy  is  so  fundamental  as  to  be  some- 
times called  the  pivot  of  Old  Testament  criticism  ;  and 
on  this  so  fundamental  question  critical  opinion  is 
practically  unanimous  that  the  book  comes  from  the 
seventh  century  B.  c.  —  a  conclusion  reached  about  a 
hundred  years  ago. 

(iv)  Another  result  is  the  new  appreciation  of  the 
enormous  intellectual  and  spiritual  significance  of 
the  exile.  On  the  older  view  of  the  Bible,  almost  the 
only  voice  then  raised  was  that  of  Ezekiel.  Now  we 
know  that  neither  in  his  priestly  nor  in  his  prophetic 
activity  did  he  stand  alone.  Other  prophets  (Is. 
xl.-lv.)  lifted  up  their  word  of  inspiration  and  con- 
solation. Histories,  ancient  and  more  recent,  were 
collected  and  edited,  and  the  lessons  taught  by  the 
exile  were  woven  into  them.  The  importance  of 
the  exile  as  a  formative  influence  on  Jewish  thought, 
life,  and  literature  it  would  be  almost  impossible  to 
overestimate. 

(v)  The  post-exilic  period  was  a  time  of  markedly 
predominant  priestly  interests.  The  "  law,"  if  not 
the  product  of  Judaism,  at  least  became  law  then  in 
a  sense  in  which  it  had  never  been  before.  The  con- 
trast between  the  prophet  and  the  priest  has  no  doubt 


CONFUSIONS   OF   CRITICISM      75 

often  been  too  absolutely  drawn  ; l  but  speaking  very 
broadly,  it  would  be  fair  to  say  that  the  pre-exilic 
period  was  the  period  of  the  prophet,  while  the  post- 
exilic  period  was  that  of  the  priest.  The  history  of 
Israel  is  certainly  very  much  more  than  a  ceaseless 
conflict  between  these  two  forces.  Not  seldom  those 
forces  were  really  working  for  the  same  ends  ;  and  it 
was  in  large  measure  the  priestly  forms  of  Judaism 
that  preserved  the  prophetic  spirit  against  the  perilous 
inroads  of  heathenism.  Nevertheless  the  contrast  has 
proved  a  very  useful  and  fertile  one. 

(vi)  Another  result  in  which  the  critics  are  in 
complete  harmony  is  that  the  closing  of  the  canon 
took  place  at  a  much  later  date  than  was  for- 
merly supposed,  and  that  some  of  the  greatest  books 
of  the  Old  Testament  —  Jonah,  e.g.,  and  Daniel,  and 
many  of  the  Psalms,  to  say  nothing  of  books  of  the 
most  profound  human  interest,  like  Ecclesiastes — 
were  written  at  a  period  in  which  it  used  to  be 
thought  that  no  heavenly  voice  had  spoken.  The 
gain  here  is  obvious.  There  are  no  four  hundred 
years  of  silence,  as  indeed  there  could  not  be.  The 
Old  Testament  revelation  ran  a  long  course  :  periods 
which  before  were  blank  are  now  seen  to  be  crowded 
with  interest,  human  and  divine. 

(vii)  We  have  hitherto  confined  ourselves  to  details. 
One  word  may  be  said  in  conclusion  about  the  general 
effect  that  criticism  has  had  on  the  presentation  of 
the  history.  Put  briefly  it  is  this  :  It  has  made  it 

1  Principal  Harper's  "  Constructive  Studies  in  the  Priestly  Element 
in  the  Old  Testament,"  which  appeared  in  the  "  Biblical  World  "  for 
1901,  and  have  since  been  published  in  book  form,  will  go  a  long  way 
toward  correcting  the  oue-sided  view  of  the  place  of  the  priest. 


76     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

abundantly  clear  that  revelation  was  progressive.  It 
did  not  begin  by  furnishing  the  people  with  highly 
elaborated  laws,  irrelevant  to  their  situation  ;  nor  did 
it  end  by  leaving  them  four  hundred  years  without  a 
divine  witness.  It  gave  them  what  they  needed  and 
could  understand.  It  taught  them  what  they  could 
bear.  It  had  many  things  to  say,  but  it  was  in  no 
haste  to  say  them ;  it  said  them  here  a  little  and 
there  a  little.  It  led  them  as  a  father  leads  his  child. 
On  the  part  of  the  great  interpreters  of  God's  will 
and  purpose,  the  appreciation  of  truth  grew.  In  the 
words  of  a  French  scholar  :  "  God  took  men  where 
they  were,  in  order  to  lift  them  progressively  to 
Himself." l 

i  Loisy,  "  Etudes  Bibliques,"  p.  121. 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE  FUNCTION  OF   CRITICISM 

WE  may  regulate  criticism  :  suppress  it  we  cannot. 
It  is  one  of  the  deepest  necessities  of  our  experience. 
Indeed  without  it  we  could  have  no  experience ;  that 
is,  no  coherent,  connected  experience.  Experience 
would  be  meaningless  were  the  scattered  facts  which 
seem  to  constitute  it,  though  by  themselves  they  could 
never  really  constitute  it,  not  lifted  up  into  a  unity, 
related  to  one  another,  and  to  the  self  that  judges 
them.  Criticism,  in  however  technical  a  sense  it  may 
be  applied,  and  however  forbidding  or  regrettable 
some  of  its  results  in  certain  spheres  have  been  ima- 
gined to  be,  always  springs  essentially  from  the  im- 
pulse —  an  impulse  which  the  man  in  the  street  shares 
with  the  professional  critic  —  to  relate  the  facts  of 
our  experience  to  one  another.  It  is  only  another 
term  for  judging  of  the  relations  of  things.  A  critic 
is  a  krites,  or  judge.  Criticism  is  explicit  judgment ; 
and  we  are  all  critics,  not  perhaps  formally,  but  none 
the  less  really,  in  the  sense  that  all  our  opinions, 
those  that  are  hasty  no  less  than  those  that  are 
mature,  are  judgments,  at  least  informal  and  implicit. 
The  very  nature  of  our  experience  as  human  beings 
presupposes  not  only  the  right,  but  the  necessity,  of 
criticism. 


78     OLD   TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

Before  proceeding  to  establish  this  point  by  an 
appeal  to  our  current  opinions  about  certain  parts 
of  the  Bible,  let  us  look  for  a  moment  at  the  origin 
of  the  word.  Words  are  like  men.  In  the  course  of 
their  checkered  history  they  often  stray  far  enough 
from  the  sphere  in  which  they  first  saw  the  light,  and 
from  the  duty  for  which  they  were  originally  des- 
tined ;  but  they  usually  retain  to  the  last  something 
of  their  original  purpose  and  accent.  A  clear  con- 
ception of  what  is  involved  in  criticism,  and  of  all 
that  still  constitutes  its  essential  qualities,  may  be 
won  by  even  a  brief  examination  of  the  use  of  the 
word  in  the  language  from  which  it  came.  A  critic 
is  one  who  judges.  The  root  idea  of  the  Greek  word, 
however,  is  simpler  than  this.  Krino  originally  means 
to  separate,  e.  g.,  one  thing  from  another  unlike  it,  as 
the  good  from  the  bad.  Here  in  this  simple  illustra- 
tion lies  the  germ  of  all  that  subsequently  appears  in 
the  complex  form  of  modern  criticism.  It  implies  a 
standard  in  virtue  of  which  one  thing  is  marked  off, 
discriminated,  from  another ;  and  also  a  deliberate 
judgment  on  the  facts  before  us,  determined  by  that 
standard.  If  the  standard  is  at  fault,  the  judgment 
will  be  at  fault;  but  standard  and  judgment  are  alike 
involved  in  the  simplest  act  of  separation  —  discrimi- 
nation. Further,  from  the  idea  of  separation  of  one 
thing  from  another  springs  the. idea  of  selecting  from 
a  whole ;  thus  Jcrino  can  mean  to  pick  out,  choose. 
This,  in  its  turn,  gives  rise  to  a  further  but  perfectly 
natural  development  —  to  decide,  in  presence  of  a 
large  array  of  facts  or  evidence,  in  favor  of  one  fact 
or  view  rather  than  of  another,  and  therefore  the 


THE    FUNCTION    OF   CRITICISM     79 

word  may  be  used  in  the  sense  of  "  deciding  a  contest 
or   dispute."     Here   we  have   passed  subtly  from   a 
predominantly  material   or   sensuous  sphere  to  one 
involving  moral  and  intellectual  considerations.     The 
step  from  this  meaning  to  the  last  of  all  is  easy  —  to 
pass  an  intellectual  judgment;  e.g.  "I  give  my  judg- 
ment   (krino)    that   thou    art   the    victor "    (^Esch. 
Choeph.  903).    This  brings  us,  if  not  actually,  at  least 
practically,  within  the  modern  use  of  the  word  which 
suggests  a  more  formal  study  of   the   material  sur- 
veyed, but  does  not  essentially  involve  any  new  prin- 
ciples.    Even  this  modern  and  formal  idea  appears  in 
later  Greek  in  which  the  adjective  kritikos  could  be 
used  as  practically  equivalent  to  our  word  "  critic," 
and  also  in  the  Latin,  which  rests  on  Greek  (Cicero, 
Quintilian,  Horace).1     Critical  is  an  epithet  applied  in 
Hebrews  iv.  12  to  "  the  word  of  God,"  which  is  said  to 
be  "  critical "  of  the  thoughts  and  intents  of  the  heart. 
Having  traced  the  word  to  its  origin,  and  in  its 
development,  let  us  now  proceed  to  show  that  criti- 
cism does  not  need  to  begin  by  substantiating  its  right 
to  exist,  but  is  involved,  even  in  the  most  conservative 
opinions,  as  really,  though  not  so  explicitly,  as  in  the 
most  radical.     We  are  all  critics,  and  our  opinions 
are  all  criticisms.     The  man  who  believes  that  the 
twenty-third  Psalm  was  written  by  David  is  just  as 
really  a  critic  as  the  man  who  doubts  or  denies  it; 
and   assuming  that   each    is   equally   honest  in   his 
belief,  their  divergent  opinions  are  produced  by  the 
same  impulse  —  their  desire  to  see  facts  in  their  unity. 
The  scholar  who  defends  the  Davidic  authorship,  even 
*  Cf.  Liddell  and  Scott's  Lexicon. 


8o     OLD    TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

the  man  who  believes  in  it  without  having  ever 
consciously  regarded  the  question  as  debatable,  does 
so  because  he  believes  —  in  the  one  case,  after  exami- 
nation of  the  question,  in  the  other,  instinctively  - 
that  there  is  nothing  in  the  psalm  inconsistent  with 
the  known  or  believed  historical  facts  of  David's  life, 
with  the  trend  of  his  character,  or  with  the  progress 
of  divine  revelation  at  his  time.  The  psalm,  he  be- 
lieves, can  take  its  place  within  the  unity  constituted 
by  those  facts :  believes,  we  say  ;  that  is  his  judgment, 
his  Arm's  —  deliberate,  in  the  case  of  the  professional 
critic  ;  real,  though  not  deliberate,  but  implicit,  in  the 
case  of  the  ordinary  Christian.  The  scholar  who  ob- 
jects to  the  Davidic  authorship  does  so  because,  so  far 
as  he  can  see,  it  cannot  be  related  to  the  established, 
or  presumably  established,  facts  of  the  history.  He 
may  argue  that  its  repose  does  not  seem  the  natural  re- 
flection of  the  comparatively  rude  age  in  which  David 
lived,  or  that  it  is  too  unlike  the  elegy  to  be  from 
the  same  hand,  or  that  the  depth  of  its  feeling  and 
the  quiet  beauty  of  its  trust  is  hardly  what  we  should 
expect  to  meet  till  revelation  had  reached  a  more 
advanced  stage,  and  is  hard,  if  not  impossible,  to 
reconcile  with  the  known  religious  facts  and  attain- 
ments of  that  early  period.  In  many  cases  such  an 
argument  as  this  might  be  reinforced  by  considera- 
tions drawn  from  the  literary  style  or  the  metrical 
form  of  the  poem,  though  such  arguments  are  notori- 
ously precarious.  We  are  not  here  expressing  any 
opinion  whatever  as  to  the  authorship,  nor  are  we 
arguing  that  these  reasons  are  adequate :  we  are 
merely  pointing  out  that  the  plain  man  who  believes 


THE    FUNCTION    OF    CRITICISM     81 

that  the  psalm  was  written  by  David  is  a  critic,  no 
less  than  the  scholar  whose  conclusion  he  rejects  and 
regrets,  and  that  he  believes  what  he  believes  for  rea- 
sons which  will  compel  him  to  concede  the  critic's 
right  to  differ  from  him,  if  he  does  so  honestly.  The 
plain  man,  let  us  suppose,  has  faced  the  facts  of 
David's  life  and  times  as  he  understands  them,  and 
has  concluded,  at  least  informally,  that  these  are  not 
inconsistent  with  the  claim  of  the  psalm  to  be  Davidic. 
He  cannot,  therefore,  deny  the  critic's  equal  right  to 
face  the  facts,  and  if  he  concede  to  the  critic  the 
honest  exercise  of  his  judgment  — and  he  surely  would 
not  wish  him  to  play  it  false  —  he  cannot  resent  his 
conclusion ;  not,  at  least,  on  any  principle  which 
would  not  equally  justify  the  critic  in  rejecting  his 
conclusion. 

Or  take,  again,  the  Mosaic  authorship  of  the  Penta- 
teuch. The  plain  man  believes  in  it,  let  us  assume : 
a  critic  doubts  it.  Which  is  right?  That  is  a  ques- 
tion for  the  most  careful  and  impartial  investigation. 
But  in  the  meantime  the  point  to  notice  is  that  they 
reach  their  different  conclusions  from  identical  prin- 
ciples. Both,  let  us  presume,  have  enough  of  the 
historical  sense  to  see  that  they  must  start  from  facts. 
The  critic  believes  that  the  facts  are  flagrantly  incom- 
patible with  the  Mosaic  authorship,  even  with  single 
authorship:  the  plain  man  believes  that  they  are 
not  incompatible  with  it,  and  that,  where  they  seem 
to  be,  the  difficulty  would  be  easily  surmounted  by  one 
who  believed  in  the  almighty  power  of  God,  and  that 
to  feel  such  difficulties  proves  the  littleness  of  faith. 
The  critic  asks  how  a  single  author  could  give  differ- 

6 


82     OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

ent  and  in  some  cases  inconsistent  accounts  of  what 
clearly  appear  to  him  to  be  the  same  incidents ;  how 
the  style  of  an  author  could  vary  so  much  and  yet  so 
uniformly ;  how  a  man  could  give  an  account  of  his 
own  death  ; l  how  names  2  and  allusions  to  incidents  3 
and  institutions4  later  by  many  centuries  than  the 
presumed  date  of  the  authorship  could  appear  in  a 
work  of  so  remote  a  time.  "  Impossible,"  says  the 
critic.  The  plain  man  has  his  answer  ready.  The 
accounts  which  the  critic  holds  to  be  contradictory 
are  supplementary.  They  only  need  to  be  skilfully 
harmonized,  and  they  are  certainly  capable  of  it  — 
though  sometimes,  one  feels,  this  cannot  be  done  with- 
out much  juggling,  which  does  not  reflect  much  credit 
on  the  clear-headedness  or  the  literary  skill  of  his 
author.  And  difficulties  of  every  sort  can  be  readily 
surmounted  by  the  easy  assumption  that  God  can  do 
anything,  could  reveal  to  a  man  the  definite  facts  of 
the  subsequent  history  of  his  people,  or  the  manner  of 
his  own  death. 

There  is  room  for  grave  doubt  whether  such  a  simple 
solution  of  difficulties  and  refusal  to  face  them  in  the 
same  spirit  of  candor  as  one  would  bring  to  bear  in 
any  other  department  of  knowledge  be  really  in  the 
true  interests  of  religion ;  but  nothing  is  more  certain 
than  that  it  is  not  in  the  interests  of  science,  and  that 

1  With  a  curious  inconsistency  this  point  is  not  always  pressed, 
though  it  is  maintained  with  iron  consistency  by  a  few. 

2  E.  g.,  Dan.    Cf.  Gen.  xiv.  14  ;  Judges  xviii.  29. 

8  E.g.,  the  Canaanite  was  then  in  the  land  (Gen.  xii.  6). 

4  These  are  the  kings  that  reign  in  the  land  of  Edoni  before  there 
reigned  any  king  over  the  children  of  Israel  (Gen.  xxxvi.  31).  There 
hath  not  arisen  a  prophet  since  in  Israel  like  unto  Moses  (Deut. 
xxxiv.  10).  This  verse  obviously  implies  a  succession  of  prophets. 


THE    FUNCTION    OF    CRITICISM     83 

it  is  not  consistent  with  those  principles  by  which  our 
knowledge  of  the  material  world  has  advanced.  But 
the  point  meantime  is  that  the  plain  man's  condem- 
nation of  the  critic's  conclusion  is  not  consistent  with 
the  principles  which  he  himself  has  adopted.  He 
condemns  the  critic  for  failing  to  see  the  unity,  the 
coherence,  the  compatibility  in  the  facts  which  he 
sees  or  imagines  he  sees ;  he  cannot  therefore  object 
to  the  critic's  condemnation  of  his  own  unity  as  arti- 
ficial and  not  natural,  as  superimposed  on  the  facts, 
not  revealed  in  and  through  them.  The  plain  man 
makes  his  reason  the  ultimate  judge:  he  judges, 
krinei,  that  his  assumption  of  the  authorship,  sup- 
ported it  may  be  by  tradition,  is  possible,  i.  e.  does 
not  clash  with  his  view  of  the  world.  The  critic 
finds  that  that  assumption  does  collide  with  his  view 
of  it,  and  he  therefore  rejects  it.  The  plain  man 
might  reply  that  if  the  critic  had  a  truer,  more 
adequate  view  of  God  and  His  power,  he  would  see 
no  difficulty.  But  the  critic  might  reply  that  his 
view  of  God  rests  on  revelation,  no  less  than  that 
of  his  opponent,  and,  he  would  probably  add,  does  it 
more  justice.  But  whatever  be  their  respective  views 
of  God  which  appear  to  condition  their  conflicting 
opinions  or  conclusions,  both  are  critics ;  both  appeal 
to  the  logic  of  the  situation ;  both  see  in  their  opin- 
ions a  harmonious  relation  of  facts. 

Or  again,  take  the  question  of  the  authorship  of  the 
last  twenty-seven  chapters  of  the  book  known  as  the 
prophecy  of  Isaiah.  We  shall  tacitly  assume  that 
the  plain  man  is  satisfied  that  his  opinion  could  justify 
itself  at  the  bar  of  historical  investigation,  if  only  all 


84     OLD   TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

the  facts  were  known.  The  critic  points  to  a  differ- 
ence of  style  between  the  earlier  and  the  later  chap- 
ters :  his  opponent  answers  that  an  author's  style  may 
be  notoriously  uneven.  The  critic  insists  on  the  abso- 
lute incompatibility  of  the  historical  situations  pre- 
supposed by  the  two  sections  of  the  prophecy :  his 
opponent  admits  not  indeed  the  incompatibility,  but  at 
least  the  difference ;  he  defends  himself,  however,  by 
assuming  that  the  prophet  of  the  earlier  time  was 
transported  in  fancy  into  the  later  by  the  Spirit  of 
God.  In  other  words,  he  is  able  to  regard  the  com- 
plex and  apparently  contradictory  facts  or  presuppo- 
sitions as  a  unity.  He  can  relate  them,  at  least  to  his 
own  satisfaction.  He  believes  them,  not  on  haphaz- 
ard, but  on  principle  —  on  the  same  principle  as  that 
on  the  basis  of  which  the  critic  doubts  them,  namely, 
that  that  which  claims  to  be  believed  must  be  believ- 
able. Thus  the  simple,  artless  belief  of  the  ordinary 
uncritical  person  is  an  implicit  criticism,  which  he 
could  not  only  explicate,  but,  with  a  little  skill  and 
practice,  defend,  if  compelled  by  the  attacks  of  criti- 
cism to  do  so.  It  is  no  use,  then,  to  object  to  criti- 
cism. Every  belief  is  a  criticism  —  implicit,  if  the 
belief  be  intuitive ;  explicit  and  formal,  if  the  belief 
be  reasoned. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  further  to  emphasize  this 
position  that  we  are  all  critics,  and  that  therefore  no 
one  can  consistently  object  to  criticism.  But  if  fur- 
ther evidence  were  needed,  practical  corroboration  of 
it  might  be  found  in  our  preference  for  certain  parts 
of  Scripture  to  certain  others.  In  our  daily  reading, 
unless  we  adopt  the  practice  of  reading  mechani- 


THE   FUNCTION   OF   CRITICISM     85 

cally  through  Scripture,  we  turn  to  some  parts  more 
naturally  and  readily  than  to  others,  with  the  result 
that  certain  parts  of  the  Bible  we  know  tolerably  well 
—  fortunately,  usually  the  parts  which  it  is  best  worth 
our  while  to  know ;  certain  other  parts,  without  the 
knowledge  of  which  we  cannot  intelligently  enter  into 
the  full  counsel  and  purpose  of  God  as  that  purpose 
fulfilled  itself  in  history,  or  understand  the  inner  or 
outer,  the  spiritual  or  historical,  conditions  of  Israel, 
the  people  whom  He  chose  for  a  unique  religious 
task  —  these  parts  we  either  do  not  know  so  well  or 
do  not  know  at  all.  Is  not  this  choice  of  ours  an 
implicit  criticism  to  the  effect  that  not  even  all 
Scripture,  which  is  inspired  of  God,  is  equally  profit- 
able for  teaching,  reproof,  correction,  or  instruction  ? 
Our  unexpressed  but  practical  preference  reveals  the 
latent  critical  instinct,  which  never  is,  and  so  long  as 
our  experience  is  intelligible  never  can  be,  in  abey- 
ance. This  implicit  criticism  of  the  superior  value 
for  edification  of  certain  parts  of  Scripture  to  certain 
others  has  received  formal  expression  in  a  recommen- 
dation to  be  found  in  the  Westminster  "  Directory  for 
the  Publick  Worship  of  God."  After  the  statement, 
"  It  is  requisite  that  all  the  canonical  books  be  read 
over  in  order,  that  the  people  may  be  better  ac- 
quainted with  the  whole  body  of  the  Scriptures," 
occurs  the  passage,  "  We  commend  also  the  more 
frequent  reading  of  sucli  Scriptures  as  he  that  readeth 
shall  think  best  for  edification  of  his  hearers,  as  the 
Book  of  Psalms,  and  such  like."  Here  is  conceded 
the  right  of  criticism  within  the  sphere  of  edification ; 
but  that  right  cannot  be  limited  by  this  sphere.  It 


86     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

will  and  must  assert  itself  within  every  sphere  that  is 
to  be  brought  within  the  unity  of  human  knowledge 
or  experience. 

The  criticism  which  is  latent  in  all  informal  belief 
becomes  formally  necessary  (i)  when  the  incident 
with  which  we  are  dealing  conflicts  with  probability, 
or  (ii)  when  it  is  represented  by  different  sources  in 
different  ways.  As  an  illustration  of  the  former  in 
profane  literature,  take  Thucydides'  critical  estimate 
of  the  statements  of  Homer,  which  he  regards  as  at 
least  partly  historical.  In  discussing  the  size  of 
Agamemnon's  armament,  he  takes  occasion  to  com- 
ment on  the  characteristic  tendency  of  Homer  to  exag- 
gerate the  greatness  of  the  past.  The  numbers  are  too 
high  ;  for  poets  in  their  songs  "  embellish  and  exag- 
gerate," l  and  for  this  reason  he  two  or  three  times 
takes  leave  to  doubt  the  value  of  the  evidence  fur- 
nished by  the  poetry  of  Homer.  Here  is  the  critical 
instinct  of  the  later  historian,  trained  in  the  philos- 
ophy of  the  schools,  playing  on  the  glow  and  warmth 
of  the  earlier  poet. 

The  impulse  to  criticism,  as  we  have  said,  at  once 
begins  to  assert  itself,  as  soon  as  an  incident  conflicts 
with  our  rightly  or  wrongly  founded  notions  of  proba- 
bility. As  a  Biblical  illustration,  take  the  keenly  dis- 
cussed verses  with  which  the  Gospel  of  St.  Mark 
closes.  No  critical  student  can  read  these  verses 
without  being  struck  by  them,  that  is,  without  experi- 
encing the  impulse  to  criticise  them  —  in  other  words, 
without  asking  himself  how  they  are  to  be  satisfac- 
torily reconciled  with  the  general  scope  of  the  Gos- 

1  Cf.  i.  9;  i.  10;  i.  21. 


THE    FUNCTION    OF   CRITICISM     87 

pel.  He  will  see  traces  of  what  will  strike  him  at 
first  as  an  undue  emphasis  on  externals,  and  of 
what  has  been  called  "  the  incipient  formalism  of 
a  later  generation "  —  He  that  believeth  and  is  bap- 
tized shall  be  saved,  but  he  that  disbelieveth  shall  be 
condemned  —  which  he  may  find  it  hard  to  recon- 
cile with  the  well-supported  tradition  that  the  Gos- 
pel is  early.  If  any  one  will  take  the  trouble  to 
read  anything  intelligently,  that  is,  letting  his  mind 
go'  with  it,  he  will  find  that  he  has  simply  been  apply- 
ing his  mind  to  it  in  a  critical  spirit  from  first  to  last. 
Further,  we  said  that  criticism  becomes  formally 
necessary  when  an  incident  is  represented  by  differ- 
ent sources  in  different  ways.  Take,  for  example,  the 
varying1  accounts  presented  in  Samuel  and  Chron- 
icles, of  David's  relations  with  Araunah  or  Oman. 
In  2  Sam.  xxiv.  24  David  pays  him  fifty  shekels  of 
silver ;  in  1  Chr.  xxi.  25  he  gives  him  six  hundred 
shekels  of  gold.  Such  divergences  are  characteristic 
of  Chronicles.  Now  it  is  not  possible  for  us  to  accept 
both  these  statements  as  they  stand.  If  we  assume 
that  they  are  both  correct,  then  we  have  to  exert 
ourselves  in  the  usually  rather  profitless  task  of  find- 
ing a  higher  harmony.  But  we  may  have  reasons  for 
believing  that  one  of  them  represents  the  fact  more 
truly  than  the  other ;  and  this  position  we  shall  have 
the  less  hesitation  in  adopting,  if  we  can  satisfactorily 
account,  as  we  not  seldom  can,  for  the  divergence. 
But  one  thing  we  cannot  do :  we  cannot  take  both 
these  statements  into  our  mind,  at  the  same  time,  as 

1  Reconciliations  are  offered  by  conservative  scholars  ;  cf.  Sir  Robert 
Anderson,  "The  Bible  and  Modern  Criticism,"  p.  161. 


88     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

they  are.  The  nature  of  mind,  the  necessity  for  uni- 
fying our  knowledge,  will  not  allow  us.  To  attempt 
to  believe  two  statements  which  seem  to  conflict  and 
whose  divergence  we  cannot  explain,  would  not  be 
faith,  but  credulity.  What  are  the  attempts  to  har- 
monize the  Gospels  but  a  confession  that  the  narra- 
tives, as  we  have  them,  present  difficulties,  which 
must  somehow  or  other  be  met  and  surmounted,  if 
possible  ?  and  what  is  this  but  criticism  ? 

Thus  Bible  students,  indeed  all  students,  conserva- 
tive and  radical  alike,  may  be  divided  into  two  classes: 
not  those  who  receive  truth  on  evidence  and  those 
who  receive  it  on  faith,  not  critics  arid  non-critics  — 
for,  as  we  have  tried  to  show,  we  are  and  must  be  all 
critics  —  but  those  whose  criticism  is  capricious,  il- 
logical, unmethodical,  and  those  whose  criticism  is 
scientific.  We  cannot  dispense  with  criticism ;  it 
becomes  us,  therefore,  to  see  that  our  criticism  be  of 
the  right  sort,  regulated  by  the  scientific  spirit,  not 
inspired  by  party  spirit  or  supporting  party  ends,  but 
animated  by  a  sincere  desire  to  know  the  truth,  how- 
ever strange  and  unwelcome  that  truth  may  be,  and 
by  the  willingness  to  work  and  wait  patiently  for  it. 

At  the  outset  it  is  well  to  take  to  heart  the  caution 
of  the  late  Professor  A.  B.  Davidson.1  "  The  conclu- 
sions of  criticism,"  he  says,  "  attain  to  nothing  more 
than  a  greater  or  less  probability,  though  the  proba- 
bility may  be  such  as  entirely  to  satisfy  the  mind." 
Whether,  indeed,  conclusions  will  ever  be  attained  so 
probable  as  to  satisfy  every  mind,  to  convince  those 

1  Quoted  by  Kirkpatrick,  "  Divine  Library  of  the  Old  Testament," 
p.  8. 


THE    FUNCTION    OF   CRITICISM     89 

who  are  unwilling  to  be  convinced,  may  well  be 
doubted.  Strong  as  the  evidence  is  in  several  depart- 
ments of  Old  Testament  criticism,  there  are  yet  a  few 
scholars,  though  the  number  is  steadily  decreasing, 
whom  it  has  failed  to  convince.1  But  as  probability, 
however  high,  can  never  be  certainty,  even  though  it 
may  have  the  practical  value  of  certainty,  we  must 
always,  though  sincere  to  our  own  convictions,  be 
courteous  and  tender  to  the  opinions  of  those  who 
honestly  profess  that  criticism  has  failed  to  convince 
them ;  for  its  conclusions,  as  Davidson  says,  can  only 
be  probable. 

But  if  our  conclusions  are  to  attain  their  highest 
probability,  then  our  method  must  be  sound.  This 
consideration  leads  us  to  the  questions,  What  is  the 
function  of  criticism  ?  what  are  its  conditions  ?  what 
are  the  qualifications  of  the  critic  ?  The  basal  condi- 
tion of  all  valuable  criticism  .is  that  we  know  what 
our  author  said,  not  what  careless  copyists  or  later 
editors  represented  him  as  saying,  nor  what  transla- 
tions executed  hundreds  of  years  after  the  original,  or 
even  immediately  after  it,  suggest  that  he  said.  This 
implies  obviously,  to  begin  with,  not  only  an  acquaint- 
ance, but  an  intimate  and  discriminating  acquaintance, 
with  the  author's  language.  Without  that,  it  will  not 
indeed  be  impossible,  but  it  will  be  hard,  to  apprehend 

1  E.  g.  Principal  Cave  :  "  May  I  add,  with  all  modesty,  and  yet  with 
all  firmness,  that  all  that  has  been  written  of  serious  importance  upon 
these  several  points  1  think  I  know  1  And,  knowing,  I  dare  confidently 
to  assert  that  the  Development  Theory  of  the  authorship  of  the  Penta- 
teuch is  non-proven"  ("Battle  of  the  Standpoints,"  p.  57).  So, Dr. 
Behrends :  "  Professor  Green  appears  to  me  to  have  fully  answered 
President  Harper  "  ("  The  Old  Testament  under 


9o     OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

the  finer  shades  of  his  thought  and  feeling.    He  speaks 
to  us  in  his  own  language,  and  we  must  learn  it. 

But  we  must  know  what  it  is  that  he  says ;  in  more 
technical  language  we  must  fix  the  text,  and  that  is 
not  nearly  so  easy  a  matter  as  it  looks,  or  as  the 
beauty,  clearness,  and  continuity  of  the  printed  page 
would  suggest.  For  most  of  us,  what  we  find  on  the 
printed  page  will,  of  course,  be  practically  final ;  and  it 
always  represents  with  more  than  tolerable  adequacy 
the  actual  words  that  came  from  the  author's  pen.  But 
it  has  to  be  remembered  that  the  oldest  Hebrew  manu- 
script of  the  Old  Testament  is  not  a  thousand  years 
old,1  and  therefore,  roughly  speaking,  two  thousand 
years  distant  from  the  oldest  parts  of  the  book  which 
it  claims  to  represent.  What  may  not  have  happened 
to  the  text  in  the  course  of  that  time  ?  In  point 
of  fact,  we  have  good  reason  to  believe  that,  for  a 
very  long  time,  nothing  serious  did  happen  to  the 
Hebrew  text ;  for  a  conservative  instinct  of  unusual 
strength  was  in  operation,  helping  to  rally  men  round 
the  Book,  when  they  could  no  longer  rally  round  the 
Temple.  Still,  the  possibilities  are  there ;  and  for  the 
earlier  period  these  possibilities  become  probabilities, 
nay  certainties,  as  is  attested  by  the  different  Hebrew 
readings  that  often  lie  behind  the  Septuagint  or  Greek 
text,  and  even  by  variant  readings  in  the  Hebrew  text 
itself,  and  in  the  margin.2 

1  A  Hebrew  papyrus  of  twenty-four  lines,  however,  containing  the 
decalogue  and  the  Shema'  (Deut.  vi.  4  f.),  and  supposed  to  date  from  the 
second  century  of  the  Christian  era,  has  recently  been  found  in  Egypt. 

2  Cf.,  e.g.,  the  parallels  in  Ps.  xviii.  and  2  Sam.  xxii.     The  "  Qeri  " 
and  "  Kethibh  "  are  enough  to  indicate  that  the  original  text  was  not 
held  to  be  beyond  dispute.    Mistakes  were  also  caused  in  manuscripts  by 
the  successive  changes  through  which  the  Hebrew  alphabet  passed. 


THE    FUNCTION    OF   CRITICISM     91 

That  being  so,  we  must  then  have  recourse  to  some 
other  early  witness  for  the  text ;  and  for  this  purpose  we 
resort  to  translations, — ancient  translations,  of  course, 
for  modern  translations  prepared  on  the  basis  of  the 
printed  text,  or  of  necessarily  late  manuscripts,  can 
be  at  best  no  more  reliable  than  the  text  on  which 
they  are  based.  In  the  case  of  the  Old  Testament, 
the  translations  with  which  we  have  chiefly  to  reckon 
in  this  connection  are  the  Latin,  the  Syriac,  the  Ara- 
maic translations  or  paraphrases,  known  as  the  Tar- 
gums,  and,  above  all,  the  Greek,  which  witnesses  to  a 
text  of  the  third  or  second  century  B.  c.,  but  only  im- 
perfectly ;  for  the  literary  and  historical  causes  which 
contributed  to  the  corruption  of  the  Hebrew  text  con- 
tributed in  different  ways,  and  with  possibly  equal 
force,  to  the  corruption  of  the  translations.  These 
translations  would  naturally  in  their  turn  be  subject 
to  revision  on  the  basis  of  a  later  and  presumably 
less  reliable  copy  of  the  original  text ;  and  thus  the 
distinctive  features  of  the  original  translation  would 
disappear  in  the  forced  conformity  to  the  standard 
Hebrew.  Even  here  the  mischief  does  not  end.  Not 
only  does  the  later  form  of  the  Hebrew  text  injuri- 
ously affect  the  independent  witness  of  the  earlier 
translations,  but  the  translations  affect  one  another. 
The  Greek  version  early  attained  such  a  widespread 
recognition  that  it  affected  more  or  less  seriously  the 
Latin  and  Syriac  translations. 

How,  then,  are  we  to  establish  our  text  in  the 
absence  alike  of  a  contemporary  original,  or  even  of  a 
translation  which  reliably  reflects  it  ?  It  is  no  doubt 
possible  to  exaggerate  the  divergence  of  later  manu- 


92     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

scripts  from  the  autographs,  and  of  translations  from 
the  original ; l  but,  after  all,  it  is  the  task  of  scholar- 
ship to  reconstruct  the  original  text  with  the  best  aids 
at  its  command.  And  no  one  has  any  right  to  object 
to  that  as  finical  who  rejoices  in  being  able  to  read 
the  Bible  in  his  own  tongue ;  for,  had  it  not  been  for 
scholarship,  that  would  have  been  impossible.  The 
time  has  not  yet  come  for  a  thorough  reconstruction 
of  the  text.  Knowledge  of  the  ancient  versions  is 
steadily  growing.  But  not  till  a  highly  probable  text 
of  the  Greek,  Latin,  and  Syriac  translations  is,  we 
need  not  say  discovered,  but  reconstructed,  shall  we 
be  in  a  position  to  attempt  a  radical  reconstruction  of 
the  Hebrew  text.2  First,  then,  we  must  find,  if  pos- 
sible, the  very  words  our  author  wrote,  recognizing 
that  this  process  is  not  an  easy  one,  but  demands  a 
profound  and  extensive  acquaintance  with  ancient 
languages,  and  no  little  skill  in  the  marshalling  of 
evidence  and  the  gauging  of  probabilities. 

Assuming,  then,  that  we  are  at  last  in  possession  of 
the  words,  whether  as  the  result  of  personal  investi- 

1  "  If  comparative  trivialities,  such  as  changes  of  order,  the  inser- 
tion or  omission  of  the  article  with  proper  names,  and  the  like,  are  set 
aside,  the  words,  in  our  opinion,  still  subject  to  doubt  can  hardly  amount 
to  more  than  a  thousandth  part  of  the  whole  New  Testament."    West- 
cott  and  Hort's  "  New  Testament  in  the  Original  Greek,"  p.  565. 

2  For  a  discussion  of  the  question  of  the  reconstruction  of  the  text, 
cf.  Kittel,  "  Ueber  die  Notwendigkeit  und  Moglichkeit  einer  neuen 
Ausgabe  der  hebraischen  Bibel."    H.  A.  Redpath,  who  justly  claims 
"an   unrivalled   experience  of  what  the   Septuagint  is  capable  of," 
thinks  very  highly  not  only  of  that  version,  but  also  of  the  unpointed 
Hebrew  text.     "American  Journal  of  Theology,"  January,    1903, 
p.  13.    The  laws  of  Hebrew  metre  will  also  have  to  be  better  under- 
stood, before  the  text  of  the  poetical  books  can  be  reconstructed  with 
any  confidence. 


THE    FUNCTION    OF   CRITICISM     93 

gation  or  whether  we  accept  them  on  the  testimony  of 
others  whom  we  believe  to  be  competent  experts,  what 
will  be  our  next  step  ?  It  will  be  to  discover  what 
those  words  mean,  in  their  isolation  and  in  their  con- 
nection. And  this  means  much  more  than  that  we 
make  a  free  use  of  the  lexicon.  We  have  no  real 
knowledge  of  the  meaning  of  the  word  dikaiosune,  for 
example,  when  we  consult  the  lexicon,  and  find  the 
correct,  but  lifeless,  explanation :  "  Justice ;  in  Septua- 
gint  and  New  Testament,  righteousness."  We  wish  to 
know  what  the  word  meant  in  earliest  times,  the  simple 
conception  which  satisfied  men  whose  moral  percep- 
tions were  rudimentary ;  even  its  pre-moral  concep- 
tion, if  it  have  one.  We  wish  to  see  how  the  word 
deepened  with  the  deepening  experience  and  reflection 
of  the  Greek  nation ;  what  it  gained,  and  how  it 
changed,  when  it  was  transplanted  from  its  native  soil 
to  the  soil  of  ancient  Hebrew.  To  understand  that,  we 
must  know  what  pedaqah  meant ;  we  must  follow  the 
word  from  its  Semitic  origin  through  its  Old  Testament 
developments  into  the  New  Testament,  see  how  it  was 
affected  by  the  completed  revelation  of  Jesus  Christ, 
and  by  the  Pauline  formulation  of  that  revelation. 
We  do  not  strictly  know  what  any  word  means  till 
we  similarly  trace  it  on  its  way  through  the  history, 
watching  how  it  was  formed  by  the  conceptions  of 
the  people,  and  how  in  turn  it  helped  to  form  those 
conceptions. 

This  process,  in  the  case  of  such  a  language  as 
Hebrew,  is  linguistic  as  well  as  historical ;  that  is,  it 
demands  not  only  a  deliberate  relation  of  the  word  to 
its  life  in  the  minds  of  the  people,  but  a  reference  to 


94 


OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 


the  cognate  languages,  which  are  occasionally  the  only 
sources  from  which  we  may  light  up  obscurities. 
Thus  we  need  lexicon  and  concordance,  knowledge  of 
the  history  and  of  the  cognate  languages,  and  sym- 
pathy with  the  spirit  which  governed  the  historical 
development.  This  work  is  laborious,  but  fruitful. 
A  little  hard  study  at  a  few  words  of  a  verse  in  the 
spirit  and  in  the  manner  which  has  been  described 
will  open  the  verse  up,  or  lay  it  out,  as  the  Germans 
say  (auslegeri)  ;  indeed  our  word  expound  means  the 
very  same  thing.  The  verse  remains  closed  to  those 
who  refuse  to  take  any  trouble  of  this  kind.  In  this 
way  we  shall  have  a  glimpse  into  its  depth,  though  it 
does  not  follow  that,  because  we  see  the  bottom,  we 
can  reach  it.  We  shall  thus  get  into  the  heart  of  it, 
as  we  never  can  through  even  the  best  translation. 
We  shall  become  expositors  in  the  true  sense,  men 
who  can  lay  Scripture  out,  disengage  it  from  the  form 
which  protects,  hides,  and  reveals  it,  show  what  it 
means,  and  that  will  be  at  bottom  what  God  means 
—  His  purpose  or  message. 

This,  however,  though  indispensable,  is  not  yet  criti- 
cism. It  is  only  the  basis,  yet  the  only  basis,  on  which 
a  sound  criticism  can  be  raised.  True  criticism  must 
be  sympathetic  in  spirit  and  constructive  in  aim.  It 
is  very  important  to  emphasize  the  constructive  aim 
of  all  true  criticism  at  a  time  in  which  its  aim  must 
seem  to  many  to  be  the  very  reverse.  The  object  of 
all  criticism  is  to  put  us  in  possession  of  an  author's 
mind  and  spirit,  to  place  us  on  his  standpoint  and 
enable  us  to  survey  the  world  with  his  eyes.  The 
specific  object  of  Biblical  criticism  is  to  put  us  in 


THE    FUNCTION    OF    CRITICISM     95 

possession  of  the  mind  and  spirit  of  the  men  who 
wrote  the  Bible,  to  help  us  to  understand  the  history 
in  which  they  took  part,  and  which  they  and  their 
books  helped  to  mould,  and  to  make  plain  the  divine 
purpose  which  unfolded  itself  in  the  history.  Much 
criticism  does  not  look  like  this.  Much  of  it  may 
even  bear  a  close  resemblance  to  destructive  work,  for 
it  may  have  to  clash  with  venerable  opinions  and 
prejudices.  But  this  work,  though  not  directly  con- 
structive, is  indirectly  so ;  for  it  is  the  clearing  away 
of  obstructions.  All  criticism  should  ultimately  edify, 
build  up.  It  should  remember  that  it  is  not  an  end 
in  itself,  but  should  serve  the  end  of  elucidating 
revelation.  The  critic's  work  is  to  keep  himself  in 
the  background,  and  to  let  his  author  speak  for  him- 
self. When  the  critic's  work  stands  between  the 
reader  and  the  text,  he  has  failed.  His  task  is  just  to 
leave  us  with  the  text  with  which  he  began,  but  puri- 
fied, radiant,  transfigured,  not  by  shedding  his  light 
upon  it,  but  by  letting  it  shine  in  its  own  light.  To 
do  that,  he  must  have  a  spirit  in  perfect,  if  only  tem- 
porary, sympathy  with  the  author  whom  he  is  ex- 
pounding. No  justice  can  be  done  to  any  author  by  a 
critic  who  fails  to  fulfil  this  initial  condition ;  but  the 
grossest  injustice  is  done  to  the  Biblical  authors  by 
such  a  critic,  because  their  purpose  is  so  earnest,  and 
they  speak  the  word  of  One  that  is  higher  than  they. 

Criticism  is  not  fault-finding.     It  is  construction, 

—  not  creative,  but  interpretative  construction.     It  is 

judgment ;  and  no  true  judgment  is  possible  unless 

one  springing  from  and  instinct  with  sympathy.     We 

do  not  mean  that  to  interpret  an  author  or  artist  fairly 


96     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

you  must  believe  what  he  believes.  If  that  which  he 
has  constructed  —  be  it  statue,  painting,  or  poem — 
be  faulty  in  conception  or  expression,  then  part  of  the 
critic's  task  will  be  to  point  out  the  defect,  and  im- 
plicitly or  even  explicitly  he  may  suggest  lines  for  a 
remedy.  But  that  is  only  part  of  the  critic's  task. 
The  condition  of  success  in  the  execution  of  this  part 
is  that  he  have  so  lived  himself  into  the  mind  of  his 
author  that  he  sees  why  he  made  the  mistake  he  made  ; 
why,  from  his  standpoint,  the  mistake  was  natural ; 
and  how  all  that  he  does  is  justified  from  his  point  of 
view.  Until  we  realize  the  naturalness  of  our  author  ; 
until  we  almost  feel  that  we  in  his  place  would  have 
said  exactly  the  same  ;  until,  that  is,  we  have  not  only 
mastered  his  thoughts,  but  lived  them  over  again,  and 
felt  the  thrill  with  which  they  commended  themselves 
to  him  as  true  —  we  are  not  in  a  position  to  interpret 
him  on  the  inner  side.  We  must  first  have  a  sym- 
pathetic appreciation  of  that  which  we  would  expound 
to  others  or  even  to  ourselves  ;  for  we  have  not  inter- 
preted it  even  to  ourselves  unless  and  until  we  have 
entered  into  it  in  the  way  described.  Professor 
Bradley  used  to  say  to  his  students  in  the  University 
of  Glasgow  —  and  it  is  a  very  forcible  expression  of 
the  idea  we  are  here  trying  to  emphasize  —  that,  in 
reading  Shakespeare  (and  we  may  extend  the  prin- 
ciple to  all  reading),  what  the  characters  say  should 
seem  to  us  "  natural,  and  almost  inevitable."  We 
should  feel  that  what  they  say  is  not  only  to  be  ex- 
pected, but  that  they  could  not  help  saying  what  they 
said.  Now  nothing  but  the  most  minute  and  repeated 
study  of  an  author,  nothing  but  the  most  rigorous 


THE    FUNCTION    OF    CRITICISM     97 

exclusion  from  the  mind  of  every  disturbing  subjective 
influence,  nothing  but  a  sympathy  so  thorough  as  to 
convert  us  for  the  time  being  into  the  author  himself, 
can  produce  in  us  that  feeling  of  the  inevitableness  of 
his  work.  These  conditions  can  never  indeed  be  per- 
fectly attained,  but  it  should  be  our  endeavor  to 
approximate  to  them ;  and  when  we  have  taken  this 
trouble  with  any  great  author,  we  shall  usually  feel  in 
the  mood  for  appreciation  rather  than  censure. 

All  that  has  been  urged  is  true  in  general  —  of  the 
necessity  of  a  sympathetic  knowledge  of  an  author 
whom  we  would  criticise  justly  ;  but  it  is  doubly  true 
in  its  application  to  the  writers  of  the  Bible.  For 
these  men,  we  believe,  and  have  the  most  satisfactory 
reasons  for  believing,  were  the  inspired  vehicles  of  a 
revelation.  The  purpose  with  which  they  wrote  was 
their  own,  and  yet  not  their  own.  It  was  their  own  ; 
for  they  did  what  they  did  and  wrote  what  they  wrote 
in  the  conscious  possession  of  their  powers.  They 
were  not  machines,  but  living  men.  And  yet  the 
purpose  was  not  their  own :  it  was  not  they  who  spoke, 
but  God  who  spoke  in  them.  Nothing  is  more  obvious 
than  that  the  purpose  which  guided  their  work  was 
only  part  of  a  higher  purpose,  which  used  them  as  its 
instruments  at  one  time,  but  inspired  no  less  their 
predecessors  and  successors.  In  other  words,  no 
prophet  stands  alone.  He  is  beset  behind  and  before, 
not  only  by  God,  but  by  a  goodly  company  of  other 
God-inspired  men.  He  has  his  place  in  an  historical 
development,  which  we  may  here  more  appropriately 
regard  as  a  religious  development.  Thus,  in  our  criti- 
cism of  the  Biblical  writers,  everything  will  depend 

7 


98     OLD    TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

upon  our  attitude  to  the  divine  purpose,  which  reveals 
itself  with  most  persuasive  cogency  in  the  history  of 
Israel.  If  we  care  nothing  for  that  purpose,  then  we 
are  destitute  of  the  very  first  qualification  for  forming 
a  just  judgment  about  men  to  whom  righteousness 
was  not  only  a  passion,  but  the  breath  of  their  life. 
As  well  expect  a  person  ignorant  of  Hebrew  to  read 
the  Old  Testament  in  the  original,  as  one  who  cares 
nothing  for  righteousness  to  understand  the  passion 
that  burned  in  the  soul  of  an  Amos.1 

We  must  believe,  then,  in  the  purpose,  in  its 
power  to  adapt  the  natural  world,  and  the  passions, 
the  tempers,  the  capacities,  even  the  weaknesses  of 
men,  to  the  end  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  If  we  do 
not  see  this  purpose,  or  do  not  believe  in  it,  then  we 
shall  have  to  study  each  author  by  himself,  to  regard 
him  as  a  product  of  nature;  and  he  and  his  work  will 
be  an  insoluble  riddle,  for  naturalism  will  not  explain 
Israel  any  more  than  it  will  explain  Christ.  Not  till 
our  heart  beats  in  response  to  the  message  given  him 
by  his  God  will  that  message  receive  from  us  ade- 
quate interpretation  and  comment.  In  all  our  criti- 
cism the  head  and  the  heart  must  never  be  very  far 
apart.  Rightness  of  heart  is  not  an  absolute  guaran- 
tee for  rightness  of  judgment ;  but  it  is  an  indispen- 
sable condition.  Pectusfacit  tlieologum. 

We  shall  see  what  is  meant  by  insisting  on  the 
necessity  of  sympathy  as  a  fundamental  condition  of 

1  Cf.  Thomas  k  Kempis,  "De  Imit."  "From  one  Word  are  all 
things,  and  all  things  utter  that  one.  ...  No  man  without  that  Word 
understandeth  or  judgeth  rightly"  (I.  iii.  2).  "Each  part  of  the 
Scripture  is  to  be  read  with  the  same  Spirit  wherewith  it  was  written  " 
(I.  v.  1). 


THE    FUNCTION    OF    CRITICISM     99 

all  true  criticism,  if  we  consider  any  of  the  difficulties 
which  present  themselves  in  the  words  of  Christ. 
Take,  for  example,  the  famous  logion  — 

Go  not  into  the  way  of  the  Gentiles, 

And  into  any  city  of  the  Samaritans  enter  ye  not. 

How  would  a  shallow,  unsympathetic  criticism  deal 
with  such  a  statement  ?  It  would  dispose  of  it  sum- 
marily by  pointing  out  that  it  directly  contradicts  the 
entire  spirit  and  to  some  extent  even  the  form  of 
Christ's  teaching,  to  say  nothing  of  His  conduct.  Its 
singular  want  of  catholicity  points,  it  would  be  said, 
unmistakably  to  a  Jewish  source,  which  could  see  in 
Jesus  nothing  but  a  patriot,  and  in  His  work  nothing 
but  what  was  local  and  national. 

A  profounder  criticism  would  set  to  work  with 
more  caution.  It  would,  in  the  first  place,  be  struck 
by  the  earnestness  of  the  injunction,  repeated  in  an 
altered  form  as  if  for  special  emphasis.  It  would  be 
led  by  its  apparent  contradiction  to  the  general  tenor 
of  Christ's  teaching  to  assume  its  probable  authen- 
ticity. It  would  remember  that  Christ  must  have  a 
plan ;  that  His  work  must  begin  somewhere ;  and  in 
the  face  of  the  prevalent  antipathy  to  the  foreigner, 
that  He  would  not  be  likely  to  prejudice  His  cause  at 
the  outset  by  a  measure  which  could  rouse  nothing 
but  opposition.  It  would  feel  that  Christ  would  most 
naturally  secure  the  catholic  end  He  had  in  view,  by 
inducing  His  followers  to  limit  their  earlier  efforts  to 
their  own  countrymen ;  the  educative  and  expansive 
power  of  the  message  might  be  trusted  to  do  the  rest 
in  time.  But,  above  all,  it  would  feel  that  this  in- 


ioo     OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

junction  of  Christ  practically  implied  that  even  His 
previous  teaching  had  been  characterized  by  an  im- 
plicit universalism.  When  He  said,  "  Go  not  into  the 
way  of  the  Gentiles,"  He  must  have  been  speaking  to 
men  who  had  already  gathered  from  His  teaching  that 
it  was  their  business  to  go  beyond  the  borders  of  their 
own  people.  Nothing  but  the  most  delicate  sympathy 
with  the  mind  and  method  of  Christ  could  keep  us 
from  going  astray  in  our  criticism  of  such  a  passage. 
Again,  take  Matthew  Arnold's  general  attitude  to 
the  revelation  of  the  Old  Testament.  From  his  stand- 
point it  would  be  no  revelation,  at  least  not  a  distinc- 
tive one.  It  would  tell  us  nothing  which  we  could 
not  learn  with  equal  truth  and  power  from  Greek 
tragedy.  "  The  word  '  righteousness  '  is  the  master- 
word  of  the  Old  Testament." l  His  statement  is,  in 
a  sense,  correct;  but  it  means  much  more  than 
Matthew  Arnold  means  by  it.  He  ignores  the  fact 
that  the  Hebrew  word  for  "  righteousness  "  is  not 
seldom  paralleled  with  the  word  for  "  grace  "  2  and  is 
often  coupled  with  it.  In  failing  to  accentuate  the 
grace  rather  than  the  righteousness,  he  has  missed  the 
distinctive  feature  of  Old  Testament  revelation.  He 
has  shown  with  great  impressiveness  where  Old  Testa- 
ment religion  was  like  other  ethical  religions ;  he  has 
not  shown  where  it  was  unlike  them.  In  the  words 
of  an  English  scholar,  who  adopts  the  juster  view 
which  supplements  the  truth  on  which  Arnold  insists  : 
"The  Bible  is  inspired  because  it  is  the  record  of 

1  "  Literature  and  Dogma,"  ch.  i.  2. 

2  See  some  striking  facts  in  Hatch's  "  Essays  in  Biblical  Greek," 
pp.  49-51. 


THE   FUNCTION   OF   CRITICISM    101 

the  chief  revelation  of  God  to  man.  God  revealed 
Himself  in  creation,  in  conscience,  and  in  reason  ;  so 
that  those  who  have  never  known  the  Bible  have  had 
a  revelation  of  Him.  But  He  revealed  Himself  more 
fully  as  a  God  of  grace  to  the  Jewish  nation,  in  the 
facts  of  their  history  and  the  teaching  of  their  proph- 
ets ;  and  most  fully  of  all  to  the  Christian  Church 
in  the  life  and  teaching  of  Jesus  Christ." 1  It  is  the 
fact  that  Scripture  is  the  record  of  the  revelation  of 
grace,  of  a  God  who,  though  He  loves  righteousness 
and  hates  and  punishes  iniquity,  yet  delights  in  mercy, 
and  deals  not  with  men  according  to  their  sins,  but 
loves  to  redeem  —  it  is  this  that  makes  it  greater  than 
the  greatest  of  all  other  revelations,  and  gives  it  its 
lonely  pre-eminence  as  a  factor  in  the  moral  education 
of  the  human  race. 

Our  recognition  of  the  superintendence  of  God  will 
affect  both  our  general  and  detailed  criticism,  but 
within  no  sphere  so  profoundly  as  in  that  of  the  mir- 
aculous. This  question  will  be  more  fully  discussed 
in  Chapter  IX.,  but  a  word  or  two  here  will  not  be 
inappropriate  to  our  present  purpose.  If  God  is  a 
free  moral  agent,  and  not  only  free,  but  gracious, 
longing  for  the  redemption  of  His  fallen  children, 
it  will  not  be  surprising  that  He  should  adapt  the 
order  of  nature  to  the  interests  of  His  kingdom. 
To  a  mind  which  believes  in  God  as  the  God  of  order, 
but  does  not  understand  that  the  physical  order  is 
instinct  with  a  moral  purpose  and  subserves  a  moral 
end,  it  must  be  a  great  satisfaction  to  persuade  itself 
that  miracles  do  not  happen.  Such  a  dictum,  how- 

1  Lock,  "  Oxford  House  Papers,"  series  1,  p.  105. 


102     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

ever,  is  more  summary  than  convincing.  Difficulties 
are  not  fairly  met  by  so  simple  a  solution.  "  Miracles 
do  not  happen :  this  is  a  miracle ;  therefore  this  did 
not  happen."  One  who  could  persuade  himself  by  so 
easy  a  syllogism  would  do  well  to  re-examine  his  use 
of  words,  his  conception  of  nature,  and  his  interpre- 
tation of  history.  What  is  a  miracle  ?  Do  we  know 
enough  of  the  principles  on  which  the  order  of  nature 
depends  to  justify  us  in  affirming  that  any  particular 
phenomenon  is  a  breach  of  that  order  ?  Granting 
that  we  do,  why  should  a  breach  be  impossible,  if 
breach  there  be  ?  Is  not  this  to  shut  God  up  within 
the  walls  of  the  world  which  His  own  fingers  framed  ? 
To  do  the  Bible  justice,  we  need  not  only  scientific 
method,  but  a  Biblical  conception  of  God.  Or,  to 
return  to  the  point  from  which  we  set  out,  our  heart 
must  beat  in  sympathy  with  the  purpose  of  God,  as 
revealed  to  and  through  and  in  His  servants  the 
prophets,  the  psalmists,  the  legislators,  the  historians. 
There  is  truth  in  Matthew  Arnold's  contention  that 
"  the  language  of  the  Bible  is  literary,  not  scientific, 
language ; "  but  when  he  goes  on  to  describe  it  as 
"  language  thrown  out  at  an  object  of  consciousness, 
not  fully  grasped,  which  inspired  emotion,"  l  is  he  not 
doing  less  than  justice  to  the  formative  power  of  the 
Spirit  of  God  within  the  prophets  ?  Their  language 
was  not  merely  thrown  out :  did  not  the  "  object  of 
consciousness  "  which  "  inspired  the  emotion,"  also 
give  definiteness  and  expression,  as  well  as  direction, 
to  the  emotion  which  it  inspired  ?  Did  not  God  re- 
veal His  secret  to  His  servants  the  prophets  ? 

1  "  Literature  and  Dogma,"  ch.  i.  4. 


CHAPTER  V 
THE  HISTORICAL    METHOD— LOSSES   AND   GAINS 

THE  historical  method  has  been  called  the  gift  of 
God  to  the  present  generation.  That  is  true  in  the 
sense  that  there  never  was  a  time  when  that  method 
was  so  fearlessly  and  consistently  applied  to  all  de- 
partments of  Biblical  study,  or  when  the  validity  of 
the  method  itself  was  so  universally  admitted  as  to- 
day. But  it  is  not  true  in  the  sense  that  the  method 
was  never  known  or  used  before.  It  is  nature's  own 
method.  Its  principles  are  too  obvious  and  natural  to 
have  been  wholly  ignored  in  the  past ;  for  one  of  its 
fundamental  postulates  is  that  men  meant  what  they 
said.  The  principles,  however,  which  to  us  seem  so 
obvious  were  for  centuries  obscured  by  ecclesiastical 
tradition  and  by  the  misguided  exegetical  ingenuity 
of  both  the  Jewish  and  the  Christian  Church.  But 
God  seldom  left  Himself  without  a  witness  to  the 
historical  method.  It  was  too  patent  and  indispen- 
sable a  principle  of  interpretation  to  escape  the  honest 
eyes  of  a  Luther  or  a  Theodore. 

Nearly  four  centuries  ago  the  method  was  incident- 
ally denned  by  Luther  in  one  of  his  commentaries  in 
language  which  sounds  as  if  it  had  been  written  yes- 
terday. "  To  understand  the  prophets,"  he  tells  us, 
"  it  is  most  necessary  to  know  what  were  the  contem- 


io4     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

porary  Jewish  interests,  what  was  the  state  of  con- 
temporary politics,  .  .  .  most  of  all,  what  was  the  form 
of  contemporary  religion,"  etc.  More  than  a  millen- 
nium before  Luther's  time  the  same  principle  was 
seen  as  clearly  and  applied  as  earnestly  by  that  most 
remarkable  and  sharp-sighted  exegete,  Theodore  of 
Mopsuestia.1  It  is  amazing  to  find  how,  not  only  in 
the  broad  principles,  but  also  in  many  of  his  results, 
he  anticipated  the  findings  of  the  most  recent  criti- 
cism. The  51st  Psalm,  for  example,  he  interprets  as 
referring  to  "  the  people  in  Babylon,  confessing  their 
sins,  and  entreating  for  forgiveness  and  the  cessation 
of  their  banishment."  The  65th  Psalm,  again  ("  Praise 
is  meet  for  Thee,  0  God,  in  Zion  "),  he  refers  to  "  the 
people  in  Babylon,  yearning  for  the  return."  The 
127th  Psalm  ("  Except  Jehovah  build  the  house  ")  he 
interpreted  as  mirroring  the  interruptions  to  the 
building  of  the  second  temple  after  the  return  from 
Babylon. 

So  much  for  the  Christian  Church.  But  even  the 
early  Jewish  Church  had  some  insight  into  the  prin- 
ciple that  literature  is  not  wholly  intelligible  unless 
in  relation  to  the  history  of  which  it  forms  a  part. 
The  127th  Psalm,  which  Theodore  rightly  saw  to  be 
post-exilic,  is  referred  by  the  early  Jewish  editors 

1  Naturally  neither  Luther  nor  Theodore  used  the  method  as  strictly 
as  we  do  to-day.  Each  was,  as  we  should  expect,  in  different  ways 
conditioned  by  the  intellectual  influences  of  his  time.  For  certain 
modifications  of  the  above  statement,  as  it  affects  Luther,  cf.  p.  184, 
note.  Again,  it  was  Theodore's  mechanical  view  of  prophecy  operat- 
ing in  the  Psalms  that  enabled  him  to  represent  David  as  speaking  in 
the  person  of  various  individuals,  and  with  reference  to  the  later 
historical  situations  which  the  language  of  many  of  the  Psalms 
seemed  to  him  to  imply. 


THE   HISTORICAL   METHOD     105 

(though  not  in  the  ordinary  codices  of  the  Septua- 
gint  or  Greek  version)  to  Solomon,  and  doubtless 
supposed  to  be  connected  with  the  building  of  the 
first  temple.  The  fact  that  this  conjecture  is  al- 
most certainly  wrong  does  not  affect  the  argument. 
They  felt  that  the  lyric  was  born  out  of  a  given  situa- 
tion, and  that  only  in  relation  to  that  situation  is  it 
in  the  strictest  sense  intelligible.  Indeed,  what  are 
all  the  superscriptions  in  the  Psalter  but  testimony  to 
a  certain  historical  sense,  real,  though  often  mis- 
guided, on  the  part  of  its  early  editors  ?  Whether 
the  superscriptions  are  right  or  wrong,  whether  the 
Psalms  in  the  second  book  do  or  do  not  fit  the  vari- 
ous episodes  in  David's  career  to  which  the  super- 
scriptions assign  them,1  matters  not  for  our  present 
purpose.  They  are,  at  any  rate,  a  testimony  to  that 
instinct  for  fact,  which  is  so  hard  to  slay,  and  an 
acknowledgment  of  the  vital  and  illuminating  signifi- 
cance of  history.  The  lyric  may  wing  its  way  sky- 
ward, but  it  rises  from  the  ground.  The  more  we 
know  of  the  singer,  of  his  home,  of  his  church,  of  his 
sorrows,  of  his  hopes,  the  more  we  shall  be  able  to 
feel  as  he  felt,  and  to  live  every  tremor  of  his  emotion 
over  again. 

It  is  in  line  with  this  that  so  much  of  the  ground  of 
the  Bible  is  covered  by  history.  In  one  sense  it  is  all 
history,  if  not  of  event,  at  least  of  spiritual  fact.  But 
what  we  have  to  notice  is  that  more  than  half  the  Old 
Testament  and  more  than  half  the  New  is  confessedly 

1  See  Dr.  MacLaren's  expositions  in  his  "  Life  of  David  as  reflected 
in  his  Psalms ; "  also  "  The  Psalms  of  David  and  the  Higher  Criticism," 
by  Rev.  Alexander  Wright. 


io6     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

history,  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word.  Consider 
the  significance  of  this.  This  would  not  be  so  if  our 
religion  were  a  mystical  religion.  Emotion,  inner 
experience,  would  be  enough.  But  to  the  Christian 
religion  facts  are  indispensable.  The  Christian  emo- 
tions can  only  be  created  and  sustained  by  the  Chris- 
tian facts.  The  nature  of  God  was  revealed  from 
age  to  age  largely  through  historic  fact.  Jehovah  did 
great  things  for  His  people,  whereof  they  were  glad. 
And  the  present  arrangement  and  composition  of  our 
Bibles  is  an  everlasting  testimony  to  the  importance 
of  historic  fact,  and  to  the  impossibility  of  believing 
—  in  the  Christian  sense  of  that  word  —  without  re- 
lation to  the  facts  through  which  the  revelation  came. 
The  house  of  faith  must  be  built  upon  the  rock  of 
fact.  From  the  earliest  times,  then,  history  has  been 
in  some  measure  respected,  and  felt  to  be  in  some 
sense  indispensable  to  religion;  and  even  in  ages 
when  allegorical  interpretation  held  the  field,  there 
were  witnesses,  though  for  the  most  part  very  few 
and  feeble,  to  the  historical  method  —  scholars  whose 
efforts  were  slowly  bringing  the  world  back  to  truth, 
the  truth  as  it  is  in  history. 

The  historical  method  is  presupposed  in  most  mod- 
ern interpretations  of  Biblical  literature,  but  it  is  sel- 
dom that  one  meets  with  a  definition  of  that  method. 
This  is  unfortunate,  because  the  attempt  to  define  its 
essence  would  give  us  a  profounder  insight  into  its 
fairness  and  inevitableness,  and  would  probably  con- 
vince us  that  what  we  need  is  not  less  of  that  method, 
but  more.  Now  perhaps  the  historical  method  might 
be  most  simply  defined  as  follows  :  it  is  the  method 


THE    HISTORICAL    METHOD     107 

which  implies  that  every  literary  production  is  also  an 
historical  phenomenon,  and  a  corollary  of  this  is  that 
its  message,  if  it  have  one,  is  primarily  relative  to  its 
original  historical  environment.  The  literary  product 
—  be  it  poem,  or  prayer,  or  biography,  or  history,  or 
letter,  or  theological  discussion  —  does  not  come  from 
anywhere  :  it  conies  from  somewhere.  It  is  a  literary 
fact,  but  it  is  no  less  an  historical  fact.  It  has  an  his- 
torical context :  it  is  related  to  other  facts  and  to  the 
mind  of  the  man  who  made  it  an  historical  fact.  Till 
we  know  something  of  the  man  and  something  of  the 
other  facts,  we  cannot  pretend  fully  to  know  this  fact ; 
and,  if  we  know  something  of  the  man  and  of  the  other 
facts,  then  we  can,  not  indeed  fully,  but  at  any  rate 
partially,  explain  this  fact.  Thus  the  historical 
method,  by  emphasizing  the  necessity  for  examining 
the  mind  and  the  time  out  of  which  a  literary  prod- 
uct came,  has  done  something,  though  it  cannot  do 
everything,  to  account  for  that  phenomenon. 

Now  both  in  the  ancient  and  the  modern  world 
this  method  has  had  its  enemies.  Obvious  as  it  now 
seems  to  be,  it  has  had  to  fight  for  its  life.  The  alleg- 
orists  would  none  of  it.  The  plain  sense  often  seemed 
too  paltry  to  be  divine.  u  The  letter  killeth,"  it  was 
argued,  "but  the  Spirit  giveth  life."  At  a  certain 
stage  in  the  development  of  Biblical  interpretation, 
it  is  true  that  the  allegorical  method  served  a  useful 
purpose  ;  but  the  gain  was  dearly  bought.  The  rele- 
vance of  a  Biblical  message  to  its  original  situation 
was  forgotten.  A  subtler  and  worthier  sense  was 
sought  which  completely  evaporated  the  concrete  his- 
torical facts,  in  which  the  true  sense  lay,  and,  in  the 


io8     OLD   TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

nature  of  the  case,  must  lie.  Interpretation  was  aban- 
doned to  caprice  ;  and  what  should  have  been  a  science 
became  an  absurdity  and  a  confusion.  Naturally  all 
the  books  of  the  Bible  suffered ;  some,  however,  more 
than  others.  Such  a  book  as  the  Song  of  Songs 
offered  boundless  scope  to  the  caprice  of  the  alle- 
gorist  or  the  mystic,  who  contrived  to  avoid  the  ob- 
vious meaning  with  a  cunning  which  was  almost  as 
incredible  as  it  was  ingenious.  In  the  Song  the  two 
rows  of  teeth  were  transformed  into  priests  and  Le- 
vites,  King  Solomon's  chariot  of  the  wood  of  Leb- 
anon becomes  the  chariot  of  the  humanity  which  the 
Son  of  God  made  for  Himself ;  while  "  Thou  art  all 
fair,  my  love,  there  is  no  spot  in  thee,"  is  adduced 
to  support  the  immaculate  conception  of  the  Virgin 
Mary. 

This  type  of  exegesis  is  dying,  and  will  probably  soon 
be  dead ;  but  there  is  another  type,  not  uncommon  to- 
day, which  tends  to  depreciate  the  importance  of  his- 
torical considerations,  by  emphasizing  what  is  called 
the  timeless  element  in  the  Bible.  Such  psalms,  it 
is  contended,  as  the  23d,  103d,  121st,  145th,  are  in- 
telligible to  the  plain  man  on  the  face  of  them.  The 
fool  cannot  err  therein :  they  speak  home  to  his  heart. 
That  is  only  half  true.  It  would  be  a  simple  matter 
to  show  that  in  these  and  in  all  such  cases  the  gain 
derived  from  a  more  intimate  knowledge  of  Oriental 
life,  history,  and  religion  is  very  great,  has  a  direct 
influence  even  on  our  religious  appreciation  of  the 
psalm  and  enhances  its  power  to  move  us.  The  23d 
Psalm  reveals  its  deepest  secret  only  to  the  man  who 
knows  something  of  the  laws  of  Arab  hospitality. 


THE    HISTORICAL    METHOD        109 

Even  in  so  universally  applicable  a  lyric  as  the  103d 
Psalm  there  are  distinctively  Hebrew  notes  struck, 
which  have  no  music  for  the  uninitiated.  Who  has 
not  at  times  felt  the  remoteness  of  the  verse,  "  He 
made  known  his  ways  unto  Moses  "  ?  Yet,  to  one 
who  knows  the  allusion,  it  is  one  of  the  most  power- 
ful verses  in  the  psalm.  It  is  not  of  course  main- 
tained that  there  is  no  timeless  element  in  the  Psalms, 
but  that  that  element  is  so  inextricably  woven  to- 
gether with  elements  of  time,  that  we  must  learn  all 
we  can  about  the  one  before  we  can  have  any  ade- 
quate idea  of  the  other ;  and  this  is  still  more  true 
of  prophecy.  In  other  words,  whatever  plea  may  be 
made  for  the  timeless  element,  the  fact  remains  that 
every  literary  production  is  an  historical  phenomenon, 
and  was  written  primarily  not  for  us.  The  stones 
at  Gilgal  were  to  be  a  memorial  unto  the  children  of 
Israel  forever.  The  timeless  is  for  us,  but  we  have 
to  extricate  it  from  the  temporal,  in  which  it  came 
to  them. 

THE  LOSSES  OF  CRITICISM 

Every  great  movement,  be  it  social,  intellectual,  or 
spiritual,  costs  ;  and  the  price  has  often  to  be  paid  in 
sorrow  and  tears.  It  was  so  when  Christ  came.  It 
was  so  at  the  Reformation.  It  is  so  to-day.  It  is 
with  deep  pain  that  men  see  their  long-cherished 
beliefs  challenged,  especially  when  those  beliefs  gather 
round  the  things  which  are  dearest  to  their  hearts  ; 
and  even  when,  after  prayerful  and  continued  study, 
they  may  see  themselves  constrained  to  alter  or  mod- 
ify their  conceptions,  they  usually  do  so  only  with 


no     OLD    TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

much  pain  and  after  many  a  struggle.  The  way  of 
transition  is  hard ;  and  the  leaders  of  religious  and 
theological  thought  who  have  embraced  the  new 
movement  cannot  deal  too  tenderly  with  those  whose 
intellects  or  consciences  have  been  perplexed.  It  is 
quite  certain  that  the  gains  of  the  critical  movement 
have  not  been  unaccompanied  by  loss  —  in  some 
directions,  by  serious  loss. 

But  it  has  to  be  noted  (a)  that  the  loss  is  in  all 
probability  only  temporary,  and  such  as  is  inevitable 
in  the  transition  period.  The  feeling  of  insecurity, 
for  example,  in  moving  about  Scripture,  which  the 
first  acquaintance  with  criticism  almost  inevitably 
brings,  gradually  disappears  as  its  methods  are  better 
understood,  (b)  The  loss  is  itself  often  only  a  gain 
in  disguise,  or  at  least  is  preparatory  to  a  gain. 
The  loss,  for  example,  of  the  sense  of  the  external 
authority  of  Scripture  is  a  gain,  if  it  leads  to  a  sense 
of  its  inherent  authority.  The  latter  could  not  be 
shaken  by  any  amount  of  criticism,  (c)  It  is  not  so 
much  the  actual  results  of  criticism  that  produce  the 
loss  —  for  we  see  good  men  in  all  the  churches  who 
believe  in  those  results,  and  yet  suffer  no  loss  — 
rather  it  is  the  imperfect  apprehension  or  the  mis- 
understanding of  those  results.  No  doubt  this  does 
not  apply  to  the  weightier  opponents  of  the  critical 
movement,  but  it  does  seem  to  apply  to  the  rank  and 
file,  whose  opportunities  for  informing  themselves  at 
first  hand  are  more  limited.  Partial  and  ill-informed 
opinions  about  the  results  of  criticism,  as  some  one 
has  lately  said,  cannot  but  produce  evil  results  of 
a  formidable  kind  in  the  near  future.  If  this  be 


THE    LOSSES   OF    CRITICISM     in 

true  —  and  it  will  hardly  be  denied  —  it  becomes  the 
duty  of  every  one  who  cares  for  the  welfare  of  the 
Church  to  see  that  no  crude,  offensive,  or  purely 
hypothetical  presentation  of  the  facts  be  placed  before 
those  who  need  all  the  positive  and  helpful  truth  they 
can  get.  It  becomes  us  also  to  examine  what  those 
losses  are  which  have  to  be  deplored  in  order  that,  if 
possible,  they  may  be  counteracted  by  a  wise,  sane, 
and  edifying  presentation  of  assured  truth. 

(i)  First  may  be  mentioned  the  general  unsettle- 
ment  that  has  been  produced  by  the  vague  knowledge 
that  a  process  is  going  on  in  the  religious  world, 
which  is  not  likely  to  leave  things  as  they  were. 
There  is  a  large  number  in  every  community  whose 
hold  upon  moral  truth  is  never  very  firm.  They 
believe  the  Bible  to  be  in  some  sense,  if  not  the  only, 
at  any  rate  the  ultimate,  sanction  of  morality ;  and 
if  its  authority  is  depreciated,  the  authority  of  moral- 
ity itself  suffers  in  the  depreciation.  A  single  proved 
discrepancy  —  say,  Jehovah  moving  David  in  one  book 
to  number  the  people,  and  Satan  moving  him  in 
another  —  would,  to  certain  minds,  raise  a  doubt  — 
which  some  would  harbor  willingly,  others  with  mis- 
giving and  pain  —  of  the  authority  and  divinity  of 
Scripture.  This,  it  is  sad  to  confess,  is  one  of  the 
indirect, but  tragically  real,  results  of  the  critical  move- 
ment. If  Scripture  forfeits  its  authority  over  us,  some 
would  argue,  the  morality  which  depends  upon  it  is 
also  powerless  to  bind  us,  and  we  are  free.  Not  only 
lax  thinking,  but  loose  living,  may  and  do  easily  result 
from  the  vague  notion  that  criticism  has  attacked, 
refuted,  and  destroyed  the  Bible. 


ii2     OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

This  is  a  real  situation,  and  has  to  be  met  some- 
how. It  would  be  necessary  to  point  out,  to  one  who 
thus  reasoned,  the  assumptions  and  superficialities  of 
this  too  easy  logic.  What  gives  him  the  right,  for 
example,  to  demand  that  the  Bible,  as  a  divine  book, 
shall  contain  no  discrepancy?  That  is  his  demand 
upon  the  book,  but  the  book  nowhere  makes  that 
claim  for  itself.  Again,  what  gives  him  the  right  to 
magnify  the  importance  of  some  slight  and  relatively 
unimportant  discrepancy  ?  He  will  have  to  learn  not 
only  the  purpose,  but  the  perspective,  of  the  Bible. 
For  the  maintenance  of  his  relation  to  God  certain 
facts  are  of  the  highest  importance,  certain  others  are 
for  this  purpose  of  little  or  no  importance.  Again, 
does  he  in  his  heart  of  hearts  really  believe  that  the 
difficulty  which  has  confronted  him,  or  even  many 
difficulties  of  the  same  kind,  really  invalidate  the  ele- 
ments in  the  book  which  appeal  to  his  heart  and  con- 
science ?  or  is  the  wish  the  father  to  the  thought  ? 
Mr.  Gladstone  spoke  truly  when  he  said  that  negation 
was  as  much  moral  as  intellectual ;  and  though  many 
are  undoubtedly  perplexed  by  the  difficulties  of  Scrip- 
ture, the  heart  is  not  where  it  should  be  when  those 
difficulties  are  urged  as  a  reason  for  repudiating  its 
authoritative  truth.  Further,  such  a  person  as  we  are 
considering  would  have  to  be  reminded,  or  taught,  as 
the  case  might  be,  that,  though  the  sanctions  of  moral- 
ity are  enormously  reinforced  by  the  teaching  of  the 
Bible,  they  were  not  created  by  that  teaching.  They 
lie  deep  down  in  the  nature  of  man  and  in  the  con- 
stitution of  human  society.  There  was  a  morality 
before  there  was  a  Bible ;  those  who  are  without  law 


THE    LOSSES   OF   CRITICISM     113 

do  by  nature  the  things  of  the  law.  The  conscience 
of  man  is  God's  witness  ;  arid  no  flimsy  repudiation 
of  a  book  can  deliver  him  from  that  insistent  sense  of 
moral  obligation  which  he  carries  about  him  wherever 
he  goes,  until  he  wantonly  destroys  it.  Such  an 
answer  might  be  given  to  such  a  man  ;  but  the  fact 
remains  that  his  attitude  is  encouraged,  though  far 
from  justified,  by  the  seemingly  unsettling  tendencies 
of  contemporary  criticism ;  and  this  is  surely  both  a 
danger  and  a  loss. 

(ii)  But  there  is  another  loss,  which  seems  to  be 
involved  in  the  critical  movement ;  and  this  time  we 
are  thinking,  not  of  the  man  who  is  eager  to  cast  off 
all  authority,  but  of  the  man  who  is  willing  to  cling 
to  as  much  of  Scripture  as  he  honestly  can.  He 
would  not  say  that  there  is  no  Bible  left;  but  he 
would  say  that  the  Bible  which  is  left  is  not  the  Bible 
which  he  once  had.  If  all  that  .the  critics  say  is  true, 
not  only  can  he  no  longer  appeal  to  his  favorite  proof 
texts  in  theological  argument  with  the  old  confidence 
—  that  might  be  no  great  matter  —  but  he  finds  it 
not  so  easy  as  it  once  was  to  sustain  his  devotional 
life  upon  it.  He  reads  all  the  time  with  an  uneasy 
consciousness  that  much  of  this  has  been  questioned, 
and  in  certain  sections  where  he  is  more  familiar  with 
the  discussions,  or  at  least  the  problems,  the  religious 
truth  is  blurred  by  the  memory  of  the  suspicions  or 
difficulties  created  by  those  discussions.  There  can 
be  no  doubt  that  this  is  a  very  grave  and  serious  peril, 
and  tends,  though  it  need  no  more  than  tend,  to  affect 
the  devotional  life  alike  of  the  critic  and  of  the  man 
who  is  versed  in  the  problems  only  at  second  hand* 

8 


n4      OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

A  popular  preacher  who  is  abreast  of  the  critical 
movement  tells  us  that  he  keeps  two  Bibles  in  com- 
mon use :  one  for  purposes  of  the  study,  filled  with 
annotations  and  references  that  issue  from  his  critical 
work  ;  and  the  other  destitute  of  annotation  or  refer- 
ence or  any  such  thing  —  this  he  uses  for  purposes  of 
devotion.  Of  course  no  man  has  two  minds.  Every 
man  is  bound  to  carry  with  him  into  his  devotions  the 
mind  which  he  brings  from  his  study  ;  but  he  need 
not  carry  the  critical  temper.  In  the  hour  of  devotion 
he  approaches  his  Bible,  not  to  examine,  but  to  meet 
with  God  and  learn  of  Him.  Criticism  necessarily 
concerns  itself  largely  with  the  letter,  whereas  it  is 
the  spirit  that  giveth  life.  Further,  it  is  occasionally 
inclined  to  exaggerate  the  importance  of  questions, 
for  example,  of  date,  authorship,  etc.,  which,  from  the 
strictly  religious  standpoint,  are  quite  subordinate. 
The  true  perspective  of  the  Bible,  which  has  been 
temporarily  disturbed  by  the  minutiae  of  criticism,  is 
restored  in  the  calm  of  the  devotional  hour ;  and 
though  a  man  cannot  create  two  minds  for  himself  by 
using  two  Bibles,  still,  if  by  this  device  or  by  any  other 
he  is  able  to  keep  away  the  atmosphere  of  storm  and 
stress  from  the  hours,  all  too  few,  of  his  strictly  de- 
votional life,  he  is  bound,  by  all  that  he  owes  his  higher 
nature,  to  do  so. 

(iii)  The  increased  difficulty,  whether  real  or  imag- 
inary, of  using  the  Bible  as  a  devotional  book  has  often 
been  supposed  to  bring  with  it  a  decay  in  evangelical 
fervor,  and  to  lead  to  a  declining  interest  in  the 
evangelization  of  the  world.  Now  it  is  true  that  these 
effects  have  been  observed  in  some  of  those  who  be- 


THE    LOSSES   OF  CRITICISM     115 

lieve  in  the  newer  movement ;  but  it  is  equally  true 
that  they  have  been  conspicuously  absent  in  others. 
And  this  raises  the  question,  how  far  these  effects  are 
due  to  the  movement  itself,  and  how  far  to  the  idio- 
syncrasies of  individuals  or  to  their  imperfect  appre- 
hension of  the  spirit  of  the  movement.  Just  as  rich, 
warm  piety  is  not  the  possession  of  every  nominal  ad- 
herent of  the  common  view,  so  neither  does  it  charac- 
terize every  nominal  adherent  of  the  critical  view ;  but 
that  no  more  invalidates  the  one  position  than  it  does 
the  other.  It  is  notoriously  true  that  young  men  who 
had  even  shown  an  active  interest  in  church  life  and 
work,  sometimes  become,  at  least  temporarily,  indif- 
ferent when  they  first  came  under  the  influence  of 
another  presentation  of  religious  truth.  But  that 
only  proves  what  a  dangerous  thing  a  little  knowl- 
edge is,  and  with  what  a  high  sense  of  responsibility 
those  who  address  such  an.  audience,  whether  by 
writing  or  speech,  should  use  their  opportunities. 
Nothing  is  easier  for  a  young  man  than  to  carry 
away  a  mistaken  impression  of  a  view  of  truth  dif- 
fering from  that  in  which  he  has  been  trained,  and 
which  seems  to  appeal  to  certain  iconoclastic  tenden- 
cies that  lie  deep  in  youth.  Some  will  welcome  it 
because  it  is  new ;  others  will  fear  it  for  the  same 
reason.  Both  will  probably  misunderstand  it.  The 
welcome  and  the  fear  will  be  alike  superficial. 

Two  words  of  counsel  will  here  perhaps  not  be  out 
of  place,  (a)  The  young  man  must  be  warned  against 
the  temptation  to  estimate  the  spirit  of  the  movement, 
from  the  first  impression  it  makes  upon  him.  If  he 
thinks  that  it  emancipates  him  from  intellectual  con- 


n6     OLD    TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

vention,  he  must  learn  that  it  does  not  emancipate 
him  from  from  spiritual  law.  If  he  thinks  that  it  is 
destructive,  and  therefore  welcomes  it  with  a  thrill  of 
relief,  let  him  wait  till  he  sees  how  constructive  it  is 
before  he  attempts  to  estimate  it.  If  he  feels  that  it 
is  disintegrating  his  spiritual  life,  or  diminishing  his 
religious  activities,  then  he  may  be  sure  that  he  has 
misunderstood  it ;  and  he  also  needs  seriously  to  ex- 
amine his  moral  and  spiritual  condition,  to  see  whether 
his  affections  are  really  set  upon  the  things  that  are 
honorable  and  eternal.1 

(b)  Again,  the  preacher  has  to  remember  that  while 
he  may  create  for  his  hearers  a  new  intellectual  at- 
mosphere, it  is  of  infinitely  more  importance  that  he 
inspire  them  with  a  sense  of  the  imperial  authority 
of  moral  and  spiritual  obligation.  Atmosphere  is  a 
subtle  thing,  and  will  come  rather  from  suggestion 
than  discussion.  In  the  public  interpretation  and  ex- 
position of  the  Bible,  protests  against  existing  views 
are  usually  2  offensive,  and  seldom  edifying.  It  is  an 

1  Some  good  remarks  on  the  topic  of  authority  will  be  found  in 
G.  A.  Coe's  "Religion  of  a  Mature  Mind/'  pp.  75-82,  94-107. 

2  Of  course,  no  universal  law  can  be  laid  down  on  such  a  matter. 
Something  will  depend  on  the  local  situation.    While  it  is  true  that  the 
pulpit  does  not  exist  for  the  discussion  of  criticism,  it  is  the  preacher's 
duty,  with  the  help  of  the  Spirit,  to  lead  men  into  the  truth  ;  and  inci- 
dentally this  may,  on  occasion,  involve  a  reference  to,  or  even  discus- 
sion of,  contemporary  influences,  which  are  disturbing  the  minds  or 
perplexing  the  faith  of  his  audience.     To  deal  with  these  successfully, 
however,  a  preacher  has  to  qualify  himself  by  hard  work  so  that  he  may 
thoroughly,  and  on  its  inner  side,  understand  the  thing  he  seeks  to 
expound ;  and  again,  he  has  to  remember  that  his  work  is  not  done 
when  he  has  presented  literary  or  historical  conclusions.     He  must 
show  how  these  contribute  to  positive  religious  truth,  and  he  must 
emphasize  this  truth  with  the  earnestness  of  a  man  who  loves  the  souls 
of  men.    The  young  man  and  his  difficulties  are  not  the  only  objects 


THE    LOSSES   OF   CRITICISM     117 

offence,  as  well  as  an  impropriety,  to  speak  of  "  Sec- 
ond Isaiah,"  or  formally  to  question  the  authorship  of  a 
psalm  ascribed  to  David,  before  a  mixed  congregation 
assembled  to  worship  God  and  to  listen  to  words  of 
eternal  life.  To  whatever  historical  stage  of  the  reve- 
lation the  psalm  or  the  prophecy  belongs,  it  has  a 
positive  religious  message.  It  had  at  first,  and  it  has 
now  ;  and  that  is  the  only  thing  of  real  importance  to 
the  Church.  Doubtless  the  message  will  gain  in  clear- 
ness, power,  and  living  interest  and  relevance  when 
seen  against  its  original  historic  background.  The 
more  history  the  preacher  knows,  the  more  historical 
imagination  he  possesses,  the  more  he  can  make  the 
ancient  world  live  again,  and  compel  his  hearers  to 
be,  for  the  moment,  "  citizens  of  the  past,"  the  better 
it  will  be  both  for  his  message  and  his  people.  But 
he  can  do  all  this  without  going  out  of  his  way  to  in- 
sult conventional  belief.  Men  may  forget  the  sermon, 
but  they  will  not  forget  the  shock  given  them  by  his 
incidental  remark.  And  the  shock  may  lead  to  dan- 
ger as  well  as  pain  ;  it  may  shake  for  some  the  author- 
ity of  the  Bible.  Without  any  offensive  reference  to  a 
Second  Isaiah,  which,  besides  having  little  meaning, 
edifies  no  one,  and  provokes  and  confuses  many,  he 
may  quietly  assume  the  exile  as  his  standpoint  if  he  is 
preaching  from  the  latter  part  of  Isaiah,  and  if  he  be- 
lieves that  prophecy  to  be  exilic.  The  people  will  feel 
the  relevance,  the  power,  the  marvel  of  his  message 

to  consider.  Old  men  and  little  children  have  also  their  place  and 
their  rights  within  the  church ;  and  the  sight  of  them  should  sober  the 
wise  preacher  into  a  proper  perspective  of  his  truth.  But  much  teach- 
ing which  would  not  be  appropriate  in  church,  might  be  possible  in 
the  Bible  class,  where  the  audience  is  more  homogeneous. 


n8     OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

—  message  of  hope  in  an  environment  of  despair  ;  and 
thus,  little  by  little,  their  intellectual  atmosphere  will 
be  transformed.  Scarcely  knowing  how  or  why, 
they  will  come  to  feel  that  prophecy  kept  pace  with 
history,  that  God  never  mocked  His  people  with  an 
irrelevant  word,  but  always  sent  His  message  to  suit 
their  changing  needs.1 

With  these  reservations,  then,  it  may  be  conceded 
that  some,  especially  some  young  men,  have  suffered 
through  the  critical  movement,  whether  through  an 
unwise  and  thoughtless  presentation  of  it,  or  through 
their  own  imperfect  apprehension  of  it.  But,  if  facts 
prove  anything,  it  may  be  easily  shown  that,  so  far 
from  criticism  involving  the  decay  of  the  spiritual  life, 
it  is  compatible  with  the  noblest  evangelical  earnest- 
ness. In  the  mouth  of  many  distinguished  witnesses 
this  thing  could  be  established.  Robertson  Smith  con- 
fessed his  faith  in  these  memorable  words : 2  "  The 
supreme  truths  which  speak  to  every  believing  heart, 
the  way  of  salvation  which  is  the  same  in  all  ages,  the 
clear  voice  of  God's  love  so  tender  and  personal  and 
simple  that  a  child  can  understand  it  —  these  are 
things  which  must  abide  with  us  and  prove  them- 
selves mighty  from  age  to  age  apart  from  all  scientific 
study."  Still  more  explicit  is  the  testimony  of  Pro- 
fessor George  Adam  Smith.  "  From  the  bottom  of 
my  heart  I  believe  in  the  Bible  as  the  revelation  of 
God  to  sinful  man.  .  .  .  The  history  of  the  divine 

1  A  rare  illustration  of  the  expository  method  which  offends  none 
and  edifies  all  will  be  found  in  Professor  Jordans'  "  Prophetic  Ideas 
and  Ideals ; "  for  his  treatment  of  this  part  of  Isaiah,  cf.  pp.  223- 
273. 

2  "  Old  Testament  in  the  Jewish  Church,"  p.  20. 


THE    LOSSES   OF    CRITICISM     119 

passion,  predicted  in  the  prophets,  and  fulfilled  in 
Jesus,  is  what  gives  the  Scriptures  their  perennial 
and  their  divine  value.  .  .  .  They  and  they  alone  of 
all  books  that  had  ever  appeared  in  the  world,  told 
the  story  of  this  warfaring  and  suffering  life  of  God, 
that  in  heaven  above,  from  all  eternity,  and  in  the 
person  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  amidst  our  temptations, 
bore  our  sicknesses,  carried  our  sorrows,  and  at  last, 
as  St.  Peter  said,  in  His  own  body  bore  our  sins  upon 
the  tree."  1  From  America  the  testimony  is  the  same. 
"  I  have  given  ten  years,"  says  Dr.  Batten,2  "  to  the 
study  of  the  Old  Testament ;  I  have  read  many  criti- 
cal works  ;  I  have  investigated  many  problems  my- 
self ;  I  may  have  earned  the  —  to  many  —  odious  title 
of  higher  critic,  but  I  have  never  yet  seen  any  reason 
to  doubt  that  in  the  many  voices  which  are  heard 
throughout  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  all  the  way  from 
Genesis  to  Malachi,  it  was  possible  to  hear  the  voice 
of  the  Holy  Spirit ;  or,  I  should  rather  say,  it  was  im- 
possible not  to  hear  it."  Professor  Karl  Budde,  now 
of  Marburg,  one  of  the  greatest  Old  Testament  schol- 
ars of  Germany,  remarked  in  a  letter  to  Professor 
G.  A.  Smith  that  his  belief  in  "  a  genuine  revelation 
of  God  in  the  Old  Testament  remains  rockfast."3 
Now  it  may  be  difficult  for  the  opponents  of  criticism 
to  believe  this,  or  to  understand  how  the  seemingly 
bold  methods  of  criticism,  to  say  nothing  of  its  results, 
can  be  reconciled  with  a  humble  faith  in  it  as  a  divine 

1  At  the  General  Assembly  of  the  United  Free  Church  of  Scotland 
on  23d  May,  1902  (Glasgow). 

2  "  The  Old  Testament  and  the  Modern  Point  of  View,"  p.  315. 

8  G.  A.  Smith,  "  Modern  Criticism  and  the  Preaching  of  the  Old 
Testament,"  p.  115,  note  1. 


120    OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

revelation  ;  but  we  must  surely  take  such  men  at  their 
word.  Faith  and  criticism  are  in  their  experiences 
reconciled,  and  this  is  enough  to  satisfy  our  argument 
that  they  are  not  irreconcilable. 

A  recent  writer  in  "  The  Outlook  " l  spoke  of  a 
certain  cooling  towards  foreign  missions  as  one  of 
the  results  of  criticism,  though,  as  he  admitted,  only 
a  temporary  result.  Certainly  there  is  nothing  in  the 
results  of  criticism,  properly  understood,  to  damp  a 
man's  ardor  for  the  great  cause  of  foreign  missions. 
When  the  Old  Testament  religion  came  to  a  true  un- 
derstanding of  itself,  it  felt  the  uncontrollable  impulse 
to  become  a  missionary  religion,  a  light  to  lighten  the 
Gentiles.2  And  the  impulse  that  governed  the  better 
spirit  of  Old  Testament  times  from  the  exile  on,  the 
impulse  that  thrills  in  the  Book  of  Jonah,  is  bound 
evermore  to  animate  all  who  understand  the  inherent 
authority  of  truth,  and  the  solemn  obligation  imposed 
by  the  possession  of  it.  A  Dutch  scholar  remarks 
that  he  has  observed,  both  in  his  own  experience  and 
in  that  of  others,  that  with  a  greater  knowledge  of  the 
Old  Testament  a  greater  love  for  missions  went  hand 
in  hand  ; 3  and  one  of  the  most  interesting  and  en- 
couraging features  of  the  great  Student  Volunteer 
Convention  held  last  year  (1902)  in  Toronto  was  the 
presence  and  enthusiasm  of  many  who  are  actively 
identified  with  the  critical  movement. 

(iv)  Criticism  has  also  affected  the  dogmatic  use 
of  the  Bible,  and  this  has  come  as  a  loss  to  many. 
It  regards  the  Bible  as  a  record  of  history,  not  as  a 

1  March  15,  1902.  2  Cf.  Ps.  Ixvii. 

8  Valeton,  "  Vergangliches  und  Ewiges  im  Alten  Testament,"  p.  8. 


THE    LOSSES   OF   CRITICISM 

compendium  of  dogma,  and  its  truths  as  originally 
relevant  to  a  particular  historical  environment.  In 
the  words  of  Loisy,  "  One  does  not  even  conceive  as 
possible  a  book  written  by  men  and  for  men  which 
contains  the  truth,  all  truth,  under  a  form  appro- 
priate to  the  needs  of  all  time.'*  And  elsewhere,  "  a 
book  absolutely  true  for  all  time  is  no  more  possible 
than  a  square  triangle.  .  .  .  The  divine  word  ad- 
dressed to  particular  men  in  particular  conditions, 
was  spoken  for  them :  in  its  form,  it  is  true  rela- 
tively to  them,  though  it  is  absolutely  true  in  its  sub- 
stance." Of  course  in  the  Bible,  as  everywhere  else, 
form  and  substance  are  inextricably  intertwined,  and 
are  capable  only  of  an  ideal  separation.  But  if  the 
form  be  ancient  and  Oriental,  must  not  this  be  taken 
into  account  in  finding  the  legitimate  dogmatic  appli- 
cation of  a  text  ?  The  old  simplicity  and  definiteness 
seem  to  be  gone.  The  old  appeal  to  proof  texts  loses 
its  confidence ;  for,  strictly  speaking,  the  text  is  not 
there  to  prove  anything,  though  it  may  suggest  the 
deepest  and  vastest  things  :  it  is  the  literary  record 
of  some  historical,  psychological,  or  spiritual  fact. 
It  may  be  harder  to  build  theological  systems  out  of 
such  a  Bible,  but  it  will  be  easier  to  hold  fellowship 
with  the  men  who  wrote  it,  and  through  them,  with 
the  God  who  inspired  it.  The  historical  method  helps 
us  to  stand  where  they  stood.  We  can  think  their 
thoughts  over  again.  We  can  almost  feel  their 
breath  upon  our  faces  —  so  near  are  they.  And  in 
being  near  these  men,  with  their  thrilling  interpreta- 
tion of  life  and  history,  and  with  their  profound  re- 
ligious experiences,  we  are  near  to  God ;  for  they 


122     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

were  His  messengers.  Thus,  if  the  search  for  doc- 
trine has  been  complicated  by  criticism,  we  may  yet 
find  living  fellowship  with  living  men  of  God  and 
with  the  living  God  himself ;  and  is  not  this  a  great 
thing  ? 

THE  GAINS  OF  CRITICISM 

Let  us  now  look  at  some  of  the  gains. 

(i)  The  historical  method,  speaking  broadly,  elimi- 
nates the  possibility  of  arbitrary,  or  at  least  unreason- 
able, interpretation.  If  writers  did  not  mean  what 
they  said,  but  something  else,  how  shall  we  determine 
that  other  thing  ?  No  church  or  individual  can  de- 
termine it  for  us.  The  moment  any  such  claim  is 
made,  we  have  a  right  to  demand  a  guarantee  that 
the  proposed  interpretation  is  correct ;  and  no  guar- 
antee could  be  offered  which  would  not  involve  a 
further  assumption.  If  the  historical  method  be  re- 
jected, to  what  method  shall  we  go  ?  We  are  then 
at  the  mercy  of  the  allegorists,  the  mystics,  the  phi- 
losophers. Every  man  is  free  to  interpret  Scripture 
according  to  his  fancy,  or  at  least  according  to  his 
theology.  There  is  a  grimly  humorous  illustration 
of  this  temper  in  Patrick  Walker's  "Life  of  John 
Semple."  "  After  the  unhappy  Restoration  and  es- 
tablishing of  Prelacy,"  he  tells  us,  Semple's  "zeal 
was  so  great  and  flaming  against  bishops  and  their 
underlings,  that  wherever  he  was,  and  whoever  were 
his  hearers,  great  or  small,  he  could  never  read  and 
explain  any  portion  of  Scripture  but  he  found  bish- 
ops and  their  underlings,  and  somewhat  in  it  against 
them ;  even  in  the  beginning  of  the  Genesis,  the  ac- 


THE   GAINS   OF   CRITICISM     123 

count  of  the  whole  creation,  but  not  one  word  that 
God  created  bishops  (as  such),  and  from  that  he 
inferred  they  were  none  of  God's  creatures."  l  If 
the  historical  method  be  repudiated  or  unknown, 
Scripture  may  be  made  by  its  interpreters  to  mean 
anything ;  and  though  the  possibility  of  arbitrary 
interpretation  is  not  absolutely  eliminated  by  that 
method,  it  is  enormously  reduced,  and  the  perils  of 
allegory  are  avoided. 

(ii)  The  historical  method  has  rescued  for  us  not  a 
few  books  of  the  Bible.  The  interpretation  of  the 
Song  of  Songs  is  not  yet  settled,  but  on  any  of  the 
modern  interpretations  the  book  possesses  an  intense 
fascination,  has  a  very  powerful  moral  application, 
and  would  appeal  to  a  large  circle  of  readers  whom 
the  allegorical  interpretation  would  not  touch.  And 
what  shall  we  say  of  the  minor  prophets  ?  Were  they 
not  as  voices  crying  in  the  wilderness,  till  that  wil- 
derness was  repeopled  for  us  by  modern  scholarship, 
and  we  heard  the  prophetic  message  with  the  ears  on 
which  it  once  fell  ? 

(iii)  Again,  the  critical  movement  has  given  very 
great  impetus  to  the  study  of  the  Bible.  Never  has 
so  much  strenuous  and  enthusiastic  study  been  de- 
voted to  it  before.  The  facts  are  coming  to  be  better 
known.  The  history  of  the  Bible  is  being  examined 
in  its  relation  to  contemporary  world-history.  Its 
prophecy  is  being  understood  as  a  living  message  to 
the  prophet's  own  day.  The  line  between  facts  and 
theories  is  being  more  firmly  drawn.  The  wonder 

1  "  Six  Saints  of  the  Covenant."  Edited  by  D.  Hay  Fleming  (1901), 
vol.  i.  pp.  198,  199. 


OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

of  Israel's  story  —  unique   on   any  interpretation  — 
is  impressing  itself  more  and  more  upon  the  attentive 
mind.      This   direct   and   earnest   contact   with   the 
words,  the  men,  and   the   movements    of   Scripture 
can  only  result  in  good. 

The  literary  interest  of  the  Bible  becomes  more 
absorbing,  when  it  is  seen  to  be  an  ancient  literature, 
with  an  extraordinarily  varied,  yet  singularly  har- 
monious, interpretation  of  life,  man,  history,  God  — 
a  literature  in  which,  for  many  hundreds  of  years, 
some  of  the  finest  spirits  of  the  race  have  expressed 
their  noblest  thoughts  with  almost  unparalleled  beauty 
and  power.  But  more  absorbing  than  its  literary  in- 
terest is  its  intensely  human  interest.  The  tempta- 
tion of  the  older  method  of  study  was  to  neglect  the 
humanity  of  the  Bible.  The  neglect  was  not  un- 
natural, nor  was  its  origin  unworthy ;  it  arose  from 
its  eagerness  to  know  the  mind  of  the  Spirit.  But 
it  tended  to  forget  that  that  mind  was  only  to  be 
known  through  the  minds  of  the  men  whom  the  Spirit 
had  chosen.  And  when  the  book  lost  its  humanity, 
it  largely  lost  its  interest  as  well.  Men  are  not  all 
interested  in  theology  ;  but  most  men  are  interested 
in  men.  It  is  the  great  merit  of  criticism  that  it  has 
revealed  to  us  again  the  interesting  and  varied  hu- 
manity of  the  Bible. 

Nor  has  it  done  that  at  the  expense  of  its  divinity ; 
but  it  has  shown  us  that  in  the  Bible,  as  in  Christ, 
divinity  and  humanity  meet.  It  has  taught  us  to  find 
in  the  Bible  a  God  who  is  not  afar  off.  The  thing 
most  to  be  dreaded  in  Biblical  study  is  what  some 
one  has  not  unaptly  called  vivisection  —  the  attempt 


THE    GAINS   OF    CRITICISM    125 

to  cleave  the  living  harmony  between  God  and  man. 
The  ultra-theological  and  the  ultra-literary  types  of 
student  are  both  exposed  to  this  temptation.  The 
one  will  see  in  it  nothing  but  God,  the  other  nothing 
but  man.  The  one  robs  the  book  of  its  interest,  the 
other  of  its  glory.  The  truth  demands  their  union. 
The  God  who  dwells  in  the  heavens  is  also  a  God 
who  tabernacles  among  men.  The  divine  truth  has 
a  human  mediation,  and  the  recovery  of  the  humanity 
of  the  Bible  is  not  the  least  of  the  fruits  of  modern 
criticism. 

While  it  has  heightened  the  interest  of  the  Bible,  it 
has  also  brought  with  it  a  fresh  sense  of  reality  and 
truth.  It  puts  us  in  immediate  contact  with  fact.  It 
plants  our  feet  upon  the  firm  ground  of  history.  We 
can  all  but  see  the  footprints  of  God  as  He  moves 
across  the  centuries.  We  can  watch  His  purpose  de- 
velop. We  can  see  how  His  chosen  instruments  grew 
in  their  apprehension  of  that  purpose ;  and  the  sense 
of  security  which  comes  from  the  knowledge  that  we 
have  the  solid  ground  of  historic  fact  beneath  our 
feet,  deepens  when  we  remember  that  these  facts 
have  been  repeatedly  tested  by  the  keenest  of  critical 
processes. 

(iv)  The  historical  method  presents  us  with  a 
reasonable,  probable,  and  even  thrilling  view  of  the 
development  of  Israel's  history  and  religion.  The 
various  books  reflect  the  various  ages,  and  we  can 
watch  the  life  that  is  in  them  expand.  Literary  and 
spiritual  influences  are  shown  to  have  been  at  work 
in  unsuspected  times  and  places.  Men  were  writing 
history  in  an  age  that  we  thought  dumb.  Prophets 


126     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

were  raised  up  to  utter  their  words  of  lofty  hope  at  a 
time  when  we  thought  that  prophecy  was  dead.  The 
historical  method  has  peopled  what  once  we  thought 
were  the  waste  places  of  history  with  witnesses  for 
God.  It  is  not  altogether  fair  to  say  that  that  method 
has  thrust  a  theory  of  evolution  into  its  interpreta- 
tion of  the  facts.  Rather  the  unbiassed  interpretation 
of  the  acknowledged  literary  and  historical  facts  lias 
revealed  an  evolution  in  the  religion,  as  in  the  his- 
tory. But  of  this  more  hereafter. 

(v)  The  historical  method  has  relieved  the  double 
strain  of  (a)  moral  and  (b)  intellectual  difficulty.  In 
one  sense,  the  apologetic  of  the  Bible  is  easier  to-day 
than  it  ever  was  before. 

(a)  Not  many  years  ago,  distinguished  theologians 
thought  it  necessary  to  defend  Israel's  wars  of  exter- 
mination.1   Few  would  feel   called  upon   to  do   so 
to-day.     We  now  know  that  this  was  one  of  the  prac- 
tices which  Israel  shared  with  the  Semitic   peoples. 
Further,  our  view  of  revelation  as  coming  through  an 
historical  development  forbids  us  to  believe  that  the 
morals  and  practices  of  the  twelfth  century  B.  c.  must 
necessarily  commend  themselves  to  consciences  which 
have  enjoyed  centuries  of  Christian  culture. 

(b)  Intellectual.    Faith  is  not  believing  the  incred- 
ible.    It  is  not  doing  violence  to  the  intellect  which 
God  has  given  us  for  the  apprehension  of  truth.     It  is 
often  opposed  to  sight,  but  never  to  reason ;  and  many 
of  the  difficulties  and  discrepancies  due  to  the  literary 
methods  of  the  ancient  East  are  to  be  recognized  as 
inseparable  from  the  human  element  in  the  Bible,  and 

*  Ct  Moricy,  «  Ruling  Ideas  in  Early  Ages,"  Lecture  iv. 


THE   GAINS   OF   CRITICISM     127 

are  not  to  be  driven  home  as  articles  of  faith  at  the 
point  of  the  sword.  We  cannot  believe  that  Jehosha- 
phat  both  did  and  did  not  remove  the  high  places.1 
We  cannot  believe  both  that  the  children  of  Korah 
perished  and  did  not  perish  in  the  divine  chastise- 
ment that  overtook  the  rebels.2  With  the  best  inten- 
tion in  the  world  we  cannot  hold  these  things  together 
in  our  mind  at  the  same  time :  they  constitute  for  us 
a  mental  impossibility.  Nor  need  we  believe  them; 
for  they  are  no  indispensable  part  of  the  revelation  of 
God.  Neither,  however,  ought  we  to  magnify  them 
or  the  difficulty  created  by  them.  We  shall  recognize, 
in  the  case  of  discrepancies,  that  we  have  two  versions 
of  the  same  story,  deviating  perhaps  in  trivial  detail, 
but  agreeing  in  the  main  issue.  Such  discrepancies 
only  show  how  faithful  the  final  editors  were  to  their 
sources.  They  took  the  discrepant  statements,  and 
often  let  them  stand  side  by  side,  though  in  many 
cases  a  touch  here  and  there  would  have  reconciled 
them.  But  they  did  not  allow  the  often  obvious  dis- 
crepancy to  trouble  them ;  why  should  we? 

Now  many  of  the  sceptical  attacks  on  the  Bible, 
such  as  those  with  which  the  crowds  hi  many  of  our 
city  parks  are  regaled  on  Sunday  afternoon,  centre 
round  just  such  difficulties  as  these  —  the  dimensions 
and  contents  of  Xoah's  ark,  the  delinquencies  of  David 

1  2  Chr.  xvii.  6 ;  xx.  33. 

*  Norn.  xvi.  32 ;  xxvi.  11.  An  illustration  of  the  flimsy  apologetic 
which  tries  to  defend  snch  things,  recently  came  under  my  notice.  A 
gentleman  maintained  that  by  the  phrase  the  sons  of  Korah  in  the  last 
passage,  only  the  little  children  were  meant !  Of  course,  it  really 
the  Korahites,  just  as  the  phrase  the  children  of  Israel,  where  the 
word  is  used,  means  Israelites. 


128     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

"  the  man  after  God's  own  heart,"  and  so  on.  The 
apologete  will  still  have  to  answer  the  science  and 
the  philosophy  of  his  time,  and  it  would  be  foolish 
to  underestimate  the  difficulty  of  the  defence.  But 
attacks  of  the  kind  referred  to  are  only  valid  against 
an  obsolescent  conception  of  revelation;  they  have 
no  power  at  all  against  the  modern  view  of  the  Bible. 
All  such  objections  may  be  met  by  emphasizing  the 
revelation  as,  on  the  one  hand,  ethical  or  religious, 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  historical  and  progressive. 
To  the  revelation  conceived  under  the  former  aspect, 
any  objection  based,  for  example,  on  the  contents  of 
Noah's  ark  or  the  age  of  the  antediluvians  becomes  an 
irrelevant  triviality ;  while  to  the  revelation  conceived 
under  the  latter  aspect,  the  imperfections  of  David 
need  offer  no  stumbling-block.  David  lived  a  mil- 
lennium before  Christ.  Besides,  his  sin,  so  far  from 
being  commended  or  ignored,  was  the  object  of  a 
searching  prophetic  rebuke,  and  left  a  trail  of  sorrow 
over  all  his  life. 

(vi)  Another  gain  is  this,  that  the  discrepancies, 
etc.,  which  have  perplexed  many  and  given  occasion 
to  the  adversary  to  blaspheme,  may  be  turned  to  real 
apologetic  account.  One  of  the  greatest  objections  to 
the  critical  position,  urged  by  many,  though,  as  we 
have  seen,  not  by  all,  has  been  the  documentary  an- 
alysis of  the  Pentateuch.  But,  if  that  analysis  be 
justified  —  and  this  is  one  of  the  most  certain  results 
of  criticism  —  then  we  are  not  only  delivered  from 
the  necessity  of  believing  that  the  same  man  was 
guilty  of  inconsistencies  so  strange  as  sometimes 
meet  us  within  the  limits  of  a  couple  of  verses,  but 


THE    GAINS   OF    CRITICISM     129 

we  have  further  several  witnesses  to  a  story  where  we 
formerly  supposed  we  had  only  one.  Almost  all  the 
important  incidents  in  early  Hebrew  history  are  at- 
tested by  three  sources — the  two  prophetic  docu- 
ments (J  and  E)  and  the  priestly  (P).  Even  if  the 
evidence  of  the  priestly  document  is  weakened  by  the 
fact  that  it  is  late  —  though  there  is  good  reason  to 
believe  that  in  some  cases,  at  least,  it  rests  on  ancient 
sources  independent  of  the  two  older  prophetic  docu- 
ments—  it  is  still  a  powerful  witness  to  the  tenacity 
of  the  popular  belief,  and  reinforces  the  twofold  testi- 
mony of  the  older  sources.  Now,  it  is  never  a  scien- 
tific thing  to  disregard  the  testimony  of  a  people  to  its 
own  past ;  but  it  becomes  precarious,  not  to  say  absurd, 
when  the  leading  incidents  of  that  past  are  supported 
by  a  twofold,  a  threefold,  and,  in  certain  cases,  even 
a  fourfold 1  historical  tradition.  We  have  in  the 
Hexateuch,  when  the  critical  analysis  has  discovered 
and  reconstituted  the  documents,  so  far  as  it  can, 
precisely  the  same  phenomenon  as  we  have  in  the  Gos- 
pels—  a  fourfold  witness  to  the  epoch-making  facts 
on  which  the  subsequent  history,  in  the  one  case  of 
the  Jewish,  in  the  other  of  the  Christian,  Church  was 
founded,  and  to  which  later  ages  made  their  constant 
appeal.  Indeed,  though  this  is  the  important  point 
of  the  comparison,  the  parallel  extends  still  further. 
In  each  case,  one  of  the  sources  is  later  than  the 
other  three,  and  approaches  its  task  in  a  somewhat 
different  spirit ;  in  each  case,  too,  the  other  sources 
show  similar  resemblances,  differences,  and,  generally 

1  If  we  include  the  Deuteronomist,  as,  for  certain  facts,  we  may. 


130     OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

speaking,  mutual  relationships.1  So  far,  then,  is  the 
documentary  theory  from  reducing  the  history  to  an 
absurdity,  that  it  has  confirmed  it  in  its  most  impor- 
tant particulars. 

(vii)  Again,  many  an  extravagance  in  belief  and 
conduct  would  never  have  been  heard  of  had  the 
Bible  been  interpreted  by  the  historical  method. 
That  great  moral  and  intellectual  offence  which  we 
know  as  Mormonism,  no  doubt  finds  one  of  its  chief 
supports  in  the  corruption  that  is  in  the  world  through 
1  lust ;  but,  so  far  as  it  is  based  upon  an  appeal  to  the 
Bible,  it  derives  its  strength  from  a  false  and  unhis- 
torical  view  of  revelation.  It  is  no  use  for  twentieth 
century  men  to  appeal  to  the  polygamous  practices  of 
the  patriarchs.  The  Bible  represents  many  stages  of 
moral  illumination,  and  it  is  no  less  than  a  religious 
crime  to  appeal  to  the  earliest  as  of  equal  validity 
with  the  latest.  The  whole  trend  of  prophetic 
thought  and  example,2  to  say  nothing  of  Christ's 
teaching  and  its  implications,  is  in  the  direction  of 
monogamy. 

(viii)  This,  again,  suggests  that  the  appeal  to  the 
Bible  must  always  be  made  with  exceeding  care. 
Many  who  would  repudiate  its  so-called  testimony  to 
polygamy  would  accept  its  so-called  testimony  to  war. 
The  warlike  spirit  has  always  found  one  of  its 
strongest  supports  in  the  Old  Testament.  But  the 
appeal  is  not  so  easy  as  it  looks.  It  is,  indeed,  easy 
to  show  that  Jehovah  was  a  man  of  war,  a  God  of 

1  The  Jehovist  and  the  Elohist  might,  for  example,  for  certain 
purposes,  he  compared  with  Luke  and  Matthew,  and  the  Priestly 
Document  with  John. 

2  Cf.  Hosea,  Isaiah,  Ezekiel. 


THE   GAINS   OF   CRITICISM     131 

battles,  and  that  His  people  loved  and  all  but  glorified 
war.  But  it  is  only  fair  to  note  that  most  of  the 
poetry  and  history  instinct  with  the  martial  spirit  is 
very  early,  and  that  men  of  the  true  prophetic  spirit 
yearned  for  a  time  when  swords  would  be  broken  and 
the  art  of  war  forgotten.  The  application  of  the  his- 
torical method,  therefore,  imposes  a  great  and  noble 
obligation  on  the  modern  religious  consciousness. 
The  illustrations  already  adduced  prove  the  exceeding 
difficulty,  if  not  futility,  of  an  appeal  to  single  texts. 
Questions  can  no  longer  be  decided  by  such  texts,  for 
one  text  may  be  qualified,  even  contradicted,  by  an- 
other. The  appeal  must  rather  be  to  the  spirit  which 
brooded  over  the  whole  development  of  the  revelation, 
but  which  is  greater  than  any  single  text,  greater 
even  than  all  of  them  put  together.  Thus  every  new 
problem  in  the  moral  life  demands  from  us  original- 
ity. Its  solution  is  not  to  be  found  in  any  single 
text ;  for  that  text  is  related  to  a  situation  which  is 
not  ours.  Still,  through  the  particular  message  comes 
a  message  from  the  Eternal ;  only  it  has  to  be  disen- 
tangled by  us  from  all  that  makes  it  particular,  and 
read  in  the  larger  light  of  that  vast  and  orderly  revela- 
tion, whose  perfect  word  was  Christ.  Thus  the  histor- 
ical method  ushers  those  who  use  it  into  the  spiritual 
world.  It  delivers  them  from  bondage  to  the  letter. 
It  compels  them  to  face  every  fresh  moral  and  intellec- 
tual problem  with  courage  and  originality. 

(ix)  In  conclusion,  it  may  be  urged  that  the  his- 
torical method  furnishes  the  simplest  and  strongest 
defence  against  the  attacks  of  scepticism.  This  has 
already  been  dealt  with  in  part  under  paragraph  v ; 


132     OLD   TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

the  point  may  here  be  amplified.  The  arguments 
which  have  so  often  been  urged  in  the  supposed  inter- 
ests of  Biblical  doctrine,  the  explanations  occasionally 
offered  of  particular  texts  and  passages,  are  frequently 
so  far-fetched  and  improbable  that  they  carry  little 
conviction  to  an  ordinarily  fair  and  unprejudiced 
mind,  and  none  whatever  to  a  mind  accustomed  to 
the  severe  methods  of  exact  science.1  Not  that 
Biblical  truth  can  be  reduced  to  a  mathematical  dem- 
onstration :  far  from  it.  But  arguments  and  ex- 
planations which  would  not  pass  muster  in  other 
departments  of  investigation  are  seriously  urged  as  if 
the  fact  of  their  being  Biblical  exempted  them  from 
the  ordinary  laws  of  logic,  and  from  the  natural  chal- 
lenge of  the  thinking  mind.  Of  course  we  are  not 
here  alluding  to  the  spiritual  mysteries  of  the  Bible, 
which  must  be  spiritually  discerned ;  nor  are  we  for- 
getting the  indefeasible  necessity  of  religious  instincts 
and  sympathies,  in  a  word,  of  faith,  if  there  is  to 
be  any  true  or  even  approximately  adequate  inter- 
pretation of  Scripture :  we  are  speaking  merely  of 
certain  common  intellectual  presentations  of  Biblical 
truth. 

Now,  truth  is  a  unity.  There  are  not  two  compart- 
ments in  the  human  mind  :  one  for  the  reception  of 
theological,  another  for  the  reception  of  scientific, 
truth.  And  the  man  who  begins  to  think  for  himself 

1  Much  of  the  often  ironical  polemic  of  Huxley  in  his  "  Science 
and  Hebrew  Tradition "  was  undoubtedly  just  as  against  contem- 
porary apologetic.  Cf.  especially  VI.  on  "  The  Lights  of  the  Church 
and  the  Light  of  Science."  Christian  apologetic  is  learning  to  adjust 
itself  more  to  facts.  See  the  articles  on  "  The  Need  of  a  New  Apolo- 
getic "  in  the  "  Biblical  World  "  for  the  current  year. 


THE    GAINS   OF   CRITICISM     133 

will  sooner  or  later  come  to  feel  this.  He  may  for  a 
time  contrive  to  hold  them  apart,  until  some  incident 
in  his  intellectual  career,  or  it  may  be  his  general  in- 
tellectual development,  leads  him  to  see  that  there  can 
be  no  ultimate  disharmony  in  truth ;  and  then  the 
middle  wall  of  partition  breaks  down.  If  Biblical 
truth  has  been  presented  in  an  illogical  or  unscientific 
way,  if  improbable  arguments  and  unconvincing  inter- 
pretations have  been  urged  upon  him,  on  pain  of  being 
considered  a  reprobate,  or  —  as  a  prominent  Ameri- 
can Bible  teacher  lately  put  it  —  the  possessor  of  a 
"  sin-warped  intellect,"  is  it  any  wonder  that,  when 
the  time  comes,  it  is  the  Biblical,  and  not  the  scien- 
tific, truth  that  he  parts  with  ?  No  doubt  to  part  with 
the  Biblical  truth  for  such  a  reason  is  an  unscientific 
thing  to  do.  A  man  of  really  scientific  training  should 
know  how  to  distinguish  essence  from  accident,  and 
the  substance  of  truth  from  imperfect  arid  even  illogi- 
cal presentations  of  it.  Still,  it  is  not  unnatural  for 
such  a  man  as  we  are  considering,  especially  if  he  be 
a  young  man,  to  conclude  that  the  truth  which  stands 
in  need  of  so  unconvincing  a  defence  can  never  be 
truth  for  him  ;  and,  to  his  own  immeasurable  loss,  he 
rejects  it.  Now,  the  historical  method  would  not  offer 
him  such  a  defence,  and  so  it  would  deprive  him  of 
such  an  excuse  for  his  scepticism. 

As  an  illustration  of  the  forced  interpretations 
which  have  not  seldom  alienated  honest  and  open 
minds  from  the  Bible  may  be  cited  the  case  of  a  can- 
didate for  the  teaching  profession  in  Germany.  On 
being  asked  to  give  a  specimen  lesson  on  Genesis  i., 
when  he  reached  the  verse,  "  God  said,  Let  us  make 


134     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

man  in  our  image,"  he  paraphrased  thus,  "  Then  spake 
God  to  the  Lord  Jesus,"  etc.  When  the  inspector 
asked  him  where  he  got  this  interpretation,  he  an- 
swered that  it  had  been  taught  him  in  the  seminary ; 
adding  that,  when  he  was  teaching  a  class  of  older 
children,  he  had  been  instructed  to  say,  "  Then  the 
first  person  of  the  Trinity  spoke  to  the  second,"  etc.1 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  exegesis  of  this  type  goes 
to  swell  the  ranks  of  the  sceptics.  When  the  child 
that  is  drilled  in  notions  of  this  kind  becomes  a  student 
and  puts  away  childish  things,  he  will  in  all  probabil- 
ity put  away  those  childish  interpretations  too.  The 
pathos  of  it  is  that  he  is  likely  to  put  away  with  them 
all  reverence  for  the  book  which,  had  it  been  wisely 
and  intelligently  taught,  might  have  been  a  light  to 
his  feet  and  a  lamp  to  his  path. 

Some  recent  words  of  Rev.  Dr.  Selbie  should  be 
taken  to  heart  by  every  teacher  of  the  young :  "  Above 
all,  we  must  be  on  our  guard  against  seeking  to  save 
the  reputation  of  Scripture,  where  we  imagine  that  to 
be  necessary,  by  methods  we  should  hesitate  to  adopt 
elsewhere ; "  and  "  pause,  whenever  we  are  tempted 
to  resort  to  special  pleading,  or  to  strain  the  evidence 
in  order  to  avoid  conclusions  that  are  unwelcome." 2 
Doubtless  one  of  many  reasons  for  the  well-known  in- 
difference of  large  numbers  of  University  students  to 
religion  and  the  Church  is  the  sense  of  unreality  and 
improbability  in  the  customary  presentation  of  Biblical 
truth  with  which,  whether  from  education  or  associa- 

1  See  Kautzsch,  "  Bibelwissenschaft  und  Religionsunterricht,"  p.  7, 
note  1 . 

2  "  Critical  Review,"  March,  1902,  pp.  99,  100. 


THE   GAINS   OF   CRITICISM     135 

tion,  they  are  most  familiar.  It  is  truly  a  strange 
phenomenon  to  find  numbers  of  men  earnestly  bent 
on  the  search  for  truth  ignoring  or  rejecting  the  pro- 
foundest  book  in  the  world.  But  if  they  had  been 
taught  in  earlier  days  to  read  the  Bible  for  the  truth 
that  was  there,  not  for  the  truth  that  might  be  thrust 
into  it ;  to  read  it  for  the  inspiration  rather  than  for 
the  doctrine  it  contained ;  to  read  it  as  a  book  of  reli- 
gion, not  as  an  encyclopaedia  of  all  human  knowledge ; 
to  find  God  in  it  rather  than  to  learn  how  the  world 
was  made  and  how  denominational  prejudices  might 
be  vindicated,  —  how  different  it  might  have  been 
when  they  entered  the  liberal  atmosphere  of  the  Uni- 
versity! They  would  have  had  much  to  learn  but 
nothing  to  unlearn,  and  there  would  have  been  no 
great  gulf  fixed  between  their  present  and  their  past, 
for  both  would  have  been  inspired  by  reason  as  well 
as  by  faith.1 

It  is  pathetic,  too,  to  find  that  many  of  the  great 
literary  and  scientific  opponents  of  Christianity  know 
next  to  nothing  of  the  modern  historical  interpreta- 
tion of  the  Bible.  Just  as  the  ordinary  Christian, 
under  the  influence  of  a  mistaken  view  of  revelation, 
is  apt  to  confuse  essence  with  accident,  eternal  sub- 
stance with  temporary  form,  and  to  elevate  trivialities 
into  points  of  faith,  so  in  many  cases  the  scientific  op- 
ponents of  the  faith,  with  far  less  excuse,  do  the  same. 
In  a  way  that  is  often  crude  as  well  as  unjust,  they  take 
the  popular  presentation  of  the  Bible  and  ignore  the 
scientific.  They  combat  positions  which  the  scientific 
scholars  of  the  Bible  have  given  up  decades  ago.  It 

1  Cf.  Plato,  "  Republic,"  iii.  401,  402. 


136     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

is  notorious  that  some  of  the  most  violent  and  popular 
attacks  have  been  made  by  men  who,  however  great  in 
science 1  and  literature,  have  shown  the  most  lamen- 
table ignorance  of  the  attitude  and  results  of  modern 
Biblical  scholarship.  These  deplorable  attacks  are 
undoubtedly  injurious,  and  often  justly  give  rise  to 
the  gravest  apprehension,  especially  when  they  are 
attractively  delivered  in  the  presence  of  young  men 
whose  beliefs  are  in  the  formative  stage.  Such  attacks 
are  to  be  deprecated  as  much  in  the  name  of  science 
as  of  religion,  for  they  are  as  unworthy  of  the  one  as 
of  the  other.  But  it  is  to  be  noted  that  they  are  pow- 
erless as  against  the  modern  historical  interpretation 
of  the  Bible  ;  and  the  more  that  interpretation  under- 
lies the  teaching  of  the  young,  the  more  certain  are 
those  attacks  to  die  a  natural  death. 

1  Haeckel's  presentations  of  Biblical  truth  have  been  justly  resented 
by  Biblical  scholars.  Cf.  Zange, "  Uuwissenheit  und  Unglaube,"  p.  16  ; 
Kautzsch,  "  Bibelwissenschaft  und  Religionsunterricht,"  p.  19. 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE  METHODS  OF  CRITICISM 

IT  is  often  claimed  that  the  problems  with  which 
criticism  deals  must  not  be  left  exclusively  to  the  ex- 
perts. The  demand  is  a  perfectly  just  one,  and  the 
great  critics  do  not  resent  it.  Robertson  Smith's  lec- 
tures on  "  The  Old  Testament  in  the  Jewish  Church," 
epoch-making  as  they  were  for  the  English-speaking 
world,  were  delivered  in  the  faith  that  the  case  for 
criticism  could  be  appreciated  by  any  man  of  educa- 
tion and  intelligence.  To  master  the  intricacies  of 
the  case  is,  of  course,  the  work  of  years ;  but,  if  the 
problems  are  real,  and  not  imaginary,  their  burden 
should  be  felt  by  every  man  who  reads  his  Bible  with 
the  attention  which  it  deserves  ;  and,  if  its  main  argu- 
ments are  reasonable,  they  should  be  capable  of  being 
stated  in  such  a  way  as  to  commend  themselves  to 
the  man  who  brings  to  their  appreciation  ordinary 
intelligence  and  openness  to  conviction.  It  will  be 
the  object  of  this  chapter  to  illustrate  the  critical 
methods  by  a  few  examples.  We  shall  then  be  in  a 
position  to  judge  whether  the  problems  are  real  and 
the  methods  reasonable. 

Illustrations  of  the  critical  method  will  be  drawn 
from  its  operations  within  the  sphere  of  history, 
prophecy,  and  the  Psalter.  Firstly,  from  history. 


138     OLD   TESTAMENT  CRITICISM 


One  of  the  stones  of  stumbling  has  been  the  alleged 
compositeness  of  the  historical  books.  The  possi- 
bility of  such  a  phenomenon  has  often  been  roundly 
denied;  and,  even  where  it  is  conceded,  it  is  main- 
tained that  it  is  nothing  short  of  absurd  to  attempt 
to  delimit  the  sections  and  verses  which  belong  to 
the  constituent  documents.  Who,  it  is  argued,  would 
presume  to  separate  Beaumont  from  Fletcher,  or 
Besant  from  Rice  ?  and,  if  this  cannot  be  done  in  a 
tongue  with  which  we  are  familiar,  how  much  more 
impossible,  not  to  say  preposterous,  in  the  case  of  an 
ancient  and  comparatively  unfamiliar  tongue  ? 

Now  there  can  be  no  doubt  at  all  about  the  possi- 
bility of  such  a  composite  work  as  the  Hexateuch  is 
by  the  critics  believed  to  be.  There  is  an  exact  par- 
allel in  the  u  Diatessaron "  of  Tatian,  a  sort  of  har- 
mony of  the  four  Gospels.1  This  composite  book 
constituted  the  official  gospel  of  the  Syrian  Church 
for  about  two  centuries,  and  but  for  the  intervention 
of  certain  Syrian  bishops  might  have  actually  dis- 
placed the  Gospels  in  their  separate  form.  The  com- 
posite Hexateuch  would  correspond  to  the  composite 
Diatessaron,  and  the  documents  out  of  which  our  pres- 
ent Hexateuch  is  believed  by  criticism  to  be  consti- 
tuted would  correspond  to  the  four  Gospels.  We 
need  not  waste  words,  then,  discussing  whether  a 
composite  book  be  possible,  when  we  know  it  to  be  a 

1  An  English  translation  of  the  Arabic  version,  with  introduction 
and  notes  by  Rev.  J.  Hamlyn  Hill,  B.D.,  is  published  by  T.  &  T.  Clark 
(Edinburgh). 


THE    METHODS   OF   CRITICISM     139 

fact.  In  arguing,  however,  from  modern  analogies  to 
the  impossibility  of  discovering  the  constituent  docu- 
ments, some  important  considerations  are  apt  to  be 
overlooked.  It  must  be  remembered  that  the  two 
prophetic  documents  known  as  the  Jehovist  and  the 
Elohist  are  not  contemporary  in  the  sense  in  which 
Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  or  Besant  and  Rice,  are ;  and 
the  priestly  document  is  three  or  four  hundred  years 
from  either.  In  other  words,  these  authors  are  not 
collaborating,  as  the  modern  authors  do;1  they  are 
traversing  practically  the  same  ground  more  or  less 
independently.  True,  one  document  often  records  in- 
cidents ignored  by  the  others ;  but  in  many  cases  the 
same  incident  is  recorded  by  two  and  sometimes  by 
three  documents  ;  so  that,  for  those  who  admit  the 
possibility  of  a  composite  narrative,  the  duplicated 
accounts,  when  compared  with  one  another,  afford 
valuable  clues  to  the  nature  of  the  constituent  docu- 
ments, their  vocabulary,  style,  interests,  standpoint, 
theology. 

Apart  from  the  analogy  of  ancient  and  modern 
literature,  the  possibility  of  composite  origin  cannot 
be  denied  in  the  presence  of  certain  undisputed  phe- 
nomena of  the  historical  books  of  the  Bible  itself. 
They  refer  to  their  own  sources  again  and  again. 
The  book  of  the  wars  of  Jehovah,  the  book  of  Jashar, 
the  book  of  the  acts  of  Solomon,  the  book  of  the 
chronicles  of  the  kings  of  Israel  and  Judah  —  these 
and  many  others  are  admittedly  drawn  upon  and  in 
some  cases  directly  quoted.  As  the  sources  are  then 

1  Rice,  e.  g.,  thought  out  the  plot  and  construction  ;  Besant  wrote 
the  story,  adopting  aud  developing  Rice's  suggestions. 


i4o     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

in  certain  cases  expressly  acknowledged,  there  can 
be  no  harm  in  criticism  seeking,  if  possible,  to  dis- 
cover the  larger  unacknowledged  documentary  sources. 
The  duplicates,  as  we  have  seen,  enable  us  to  make  a 
start,  by  giving  us  some  insight  into  the  characteristic 
differences  of  the  sources. 

But  we  are  met  by  a  difficulty  on  the  very  thresh- 
old. What  is  to  hinder  the  so-called  duplicates 
from  being  accounts  of  two  different  incidents,  in- 
stead of  two  different  accounts  of  the  same  incident  ? 
The  critics,  we  are  told,  "  systematically  assume  that, 
when  one  sin,  like  that  of  Abraham  in  the  case  of  de- 
nying Sarah,  has  been  committed,  neither  he  nor  any- 
body else  can  commit  another  like  it." 1  But  surely 
the  case  is  not  so  simple.  No  critic  in  his  senses 
ever  assumed  such  a  thing.  It  is  not  this  considera- 
tion alone,  but  this  coupled  with  others,  that  induces 
the  critics  to  interpret  two  such  accounts  as  dupli- 
cates of  the  same  incident  rather  than  as  accounts  of 
independent  incidents.  It  was,  no  doubt,  perfectly 
possible  for  Abraham  to  deny  his  wife  twice,  possible 
also  for  his  son  to  deny  his  wife,  though  it  would  be 
not  a  little  strange  that  the  circumstances  in  all  these 
cases  should  be  so  very  similar.  But  when  we  find 
that  the  moral  tone  in  the  second  story  of  Abraham's 
denial  (Gen.  xx.)  is  a  distinct  advance  on  that  of  the 
first  (Gen.  xii.),  displaying  a  more  delicate  sense  of 
the  sin  involved  in  Abraham's  lie ;  when  we  further 
find  that  the  second  story  indicates  more  developed 
religious  conceptions,  emphasizing  as  it  does  the 
power  of  intercessory  prayer,  and  representing  God 

1  "Bibliotheca  Sacra,"  January,  1902,  p.  201. 


THE    METHODS   OF   CRITICISM     141 

as  coming  in  a  dream,  whereas  in  the  first  story  He 
speaks  to  Abraham  directly ;  and  when,  in  addition 
to  those  undeniable  differences,  we  find  that  Jehovah 
is  the  word  used  for  God  throughout  the  first  story, 
and  Elohim  throughout  the  second  —  we  begin  to  feel 
that  there  is  a  high  probability  that  the  two  narra- 
tives are  but  different  versions  of  the  same  incident, 
told  from  different  standpoints.1  If  similar  pheno- 
mena be  found  elsewhere  —  if,  for  example,  two  simi- 
lar stories  display  the  same  differences  in  tone  and 
conception,  and  concomitant  with  these  differences  a  dif- 
ference in  the  name  of  God  —  then  the  probability 
that  the  narratives  are  different  versions  of  the  same 
incident,  and  that  there  are  really  two  documents 
here  in  question,  is  raised  to  a  practical  certainty. 
And  precisely  this  we  find  to  be  the  case ;  for  the 
phenomena  observed  in  the  story  of  the  denial  are 
equally  observable  in  very  many  other  stories ;  and 
their  cumulative  evidence  it  is  impossible  to  turn 
aside  by  any  other  hypothesis,  for  there  is  no  other 
which,  with  anything  like  the  same  adequacy  or  prob- 
ability, accounts  for  all  the  facts.  These,  then,  are 
some  of  the  grounds,  and  not  the  inadequate  one 
already  alluded  to,  which  induce  the  critics  to  believe 
in  the  presence  of  duplicates. 

There  is  the  less  occasion  to  resent  the  supposition 
of  duplicate  narratives  within  the  Pentateuch  as  that 
very  phenomenon  is  presented  by  other  historical 
books.  The  most  extensive  illustration  of  this  is  the 
Book  of  Chronicles,  which,  in  the  main,  covers  the 

1  In  this  way  such  tales  would  incidentally  illustrate  the  progress 
of  moral  and  religious  conceptions. 


OLD   TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

same  ground  as  the  Books  of  Samuel  and  Kings,  often 
in  the  very  same  words,  but  regards  the  history  from 
a  different  standpoint.  The  differences  between  the 
priestly  and  prophetic  documents  lying  behind  our 
Pentateuch,  between,  for  example,  the  creation  story 
as  told  in  Genesis  i.  and  ii.  respectively,  are  roughly 
paralleled  by  the  differences  between  Chronicles  and 
Kings.  Only,  in  the  latter  case  the  books  are  sepa- 
rate, whereas  in  the  former  they  are  combined  in  such 
a  way  as  to  form  a  new  composite  whole,  which  it  is 
the  task  of  criticism  to  analyze  into  its  constituent 
parts.  When,  however,  those  parts  are  discovered, 
they  stand  in  much  the  same  relation  to  one  another 
as  Kings  and  Chronicles  stand  —  that  of  a  common 
theme  treated  from  different  points  of  view.  Com- 
positeness  of  narrative  is  not  confined  to  the  Penta- 
teuch :  it  is  tolerably  obvious  even  in  the  Book  of 
Samuel.  Volck1  goes  so  far  as  to  say  it  cannot 
escape  any  attentive  reader  that  at  least  two  sources 
are  blended  in  that  book ;  and  a  recent  scholar,  who 
is  inclined  to  believe  that  the  two  accounts  of  David's 
magnanimity  in  sparing  Saul's  life,2  and  of  the  origin 
of  the  proverb  "  Is  Saul  also  among  the  prophets  ?  "  3 
represent  in  each  case  two  different  incidents,  is  yet 
willing  to  allow  that  the  contradiction  in  the  story  of 
David's  introduction  to  Saul  "  certainly  proves  that 
there  were  two  accounts."  *  But  if  there  are  "  cer- 
tainly "  two  accounts  here,  there  is  at  least  a  fairly 

1  "  Heilige  Schrift  und  Kritik,"  p.  85. 

2  1  Sam.  xxiv.  and  xxvi.  3  1  Sam.  x.  12 ;  xix.  24. 

*  Mackay,  "  The  Churchman's  Introduction  to  the  Old  Testament," 
pp.  122,  123. 


THE    METHODS   OF   CRITICISM     143 

strong  presumption  that  the  similar  duplicates  just 
noted  are  to  be  similarly  explained ;  and  minute 
examination  and  comparison  make  it  practically  cer- 
tain that  throughout  the  greater  part  of  first  Samuel 
there  are  two  accounts  of  David's  career.1 

In  the  light  of  all  these  facts,  the  general  possibility, 
if  not  the  practical  certainty,  of  the  compositeness  of 
the  historical  books  must  be  conceded.  Now  let  us 
consider  how  criticism  proceeds  to  establish  that  com- 
positeness in  a  particular  case.  For  this  purpose,  it 
is  common  to  begin  with  the  Creation  story.  Certain 
phenomena  there,  however,  slightly  complicate  the 
issue,  and,  on  the  whole,  a  more  helpful  illustration 
of  critical  method  is  to  be  found  in  the  Flood  story. 
Part  of  that  story  we  shall  transcribe,  in  order  that 
it  may  make  its  own  impression.  It  is  unfortunate 
that  the  Authorized  Version  starts  the  narrative  with 
a  serious  mistake :  "  And  Gro.d  saw  "  (Gen.  vi.  5),  for 
which  the  Revised  Version  rightly  substitutes,  "  And 
the  Lord  saw,"  or  more  correctly  Jehovah,  which  the 
English  Bible  almost  uniformly  renders  by  the  Lord. 
This  mistake  shows  that  the  linguistic  argument, 
which  is  only  one  of  many  in  favor  of  the  critical 
position,  cannot  be  adequately  appreciated  by  one  who 
is  wholly  dependent  on  the  English  translation. 

And  the  Lord2  saw  that  the  wickedness  of  man  was 
great  in  the  6arth,  and  that  every  imagination  of  the 

1  For  a  presentation  of  these*  sources  side  by  side,  see  my  "  Mes- 
sages of  the  Prophetic  and  Priestly  Historians,"  pp.  147-162,  where  the 
resemblances  and   differences    between  these  sources  may  be  con- 
veniently compared  in  the  paraphrase. 

2  The  quotations  are  given  in  the  language  of  the  English  Revised 
Version. 


i44     OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

thoughts  of  his  heart  was  only  evil  continually.  And  it 
repented  the  Lord  that  he  had  made  man  on  the  earth, 
and  it  grieved  him  at  his  heart.  And  the  Lord  said,  I 
will  destroy  man  whom  I  have  created  from  the  face  of 
the  ground;  both  man,  and  beast,  and  creeping  thing, 
and  fowl  of  the  air;  for  it  repenteth  me  that  I  have 
made  them.  But  Noah  found  grace  in  the  eyes  of  the 
Lord  (Gen.  vi.  5-8). 

It  will  be  noted  that  all  through  this  section  —  once 
in  each  verse  —  the  Divine  Being  is  named  the  Lord, 
that  is,  Jehovah. 

These  are  the  generations  of  Noah.  Noah  was  a 
righteous  man,  and  perfect  in  his  generations :  Noah 
walked  with  God.  And  Noah  begat  three  sons,  Shein, 
Ham,  and  Japheth  (Gen.  vi.  9,  10). 

These  verses  certainly  look  like  an  interruption  ; 
and  it  may  be  further  significant  —  whether  it  is  or 
not  we  cannot  determine  till  we  read  on  —  that  here 
the  Divine  Being  is  called  God  (Elohim),  and  this 
applies  to  each  of  the  next  three  verses. 

And  the  earth  was  corrupt  before  God,  and  the  earth 
was  filled  with  violence.  And  God  saw  the  earth,  and, 
behold,  it  was  corrupt ;  for  all  flesh  had  corrupted  his 
way  upon  the  earth.  And  God  said  unto  Noah,  The 
end  of  all  flesh  is  come  before  me ;  for  the  earth  is 
filled  with  violence  through  them ;  and>  behold,  I  will 
destroy  them  with  the  earth  (Gen.  vi.  11-13). 

These  verses  seem  to  start  the  story  again.  They  tell 
us  practically  nothing  we  do  not  already  know,  namely, 
that  the  earth  was  corrupt  and  God  had  purposed  to 


THE    METHODS    OF    CRITICISM     145 

destroy  it.  Note,  however,  that  as  the  word  for  the 
Divine  Being  has  changed,  the  word  rendered  destroy 
has  also  changed.  In  verse  7  it  was  machdh,  to  blot 
out ;  in  verse  13  it  is  hithchtth,  to  destroy. 

Make  thee  an  ark  of  gopher  wood ;  rooms  shalt  thou 
make  in  the  ark,  and  shalt  pitch  it  within  and  without 
with  pitch.  And  this  is  how  thou  shalt  make  it :  the 
length  of  the  ark  three  hundred  cubits,  the  breadth  of 
it  fifty  cubits,  and  the  height  of  it  thirty  cubits.  A 
light  shalt  thou  make  to  the  ark,  and  to  a  cubit  shalt 
thou  finish  it  upward;  and  the  door  of  the  ark  shalt 
thou  set  in  the  side  thereof;  with  lower,  second,  and 
third  stories  shalt  thou  make  it  (Gen.  vi.  14-16). 

This  is  a  description  of  the  ark,  and  makes  a  proper 
enough  continuation  of  the  immediately  preceding 
verses. 

And  I,  behold,  I  do  bring  the  flood  of  waters  upon  the 
earth,  to  destroy  all  flesh,  wherein  is  the  breath  of  life, 
from  under  heaven ;  every  thing  that  is  in  the  earth 
shall  die.  But  I  will  establish  my  covenant  with  thee ; 
and  thou  shalt  come  into  the  ark,  thou,  and  thy  sons, 
and  thy  wife,  and  thy  sons'  wives  with  thee.  And  of 
every  living  thing  of  all  flesh,  two  of  every  sort  shalt 
thou  bring  into  the  ark,  to  keep  them  alive  with  thee; 
they  shall  be  male  and  female.  Of  the  fowl  after  their 
kind,  and  of  the  cattle  after  their  kind,  of  every  creep- 
ing thing  of  the  ground  after  its  kind,  two  of  every  sort 
shall  come  unto  thee,  to  keep  them  alive.  And  take 
thou  unto  thee  of  all  food  that  is  eaten,  and  gather  it 
to  thee ;  and  it  shall  be  for  food  for  thee  and  for  them. 
Thus  did  Noah ;  according  to  all  that  God  commanded 
him,  so  did  he  (Gen.  vi.  17-22). 

10 


146     OLD    TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

This  passage  seems  to  continue  the  last — an  ob- 
servation confirmed  by  the  circumstance  that  in  verse 
22,  which  points  to  the  preceding  verses,  the  Divine 
Being  is  called  God  (Elohim).  A  point  to  be  particu- 
larly noted  about  this  passage  is  its  extreme  circum- 
stantiality —  "  thou,  and  thy  sons,  and  thy  wife,  and 
thy  sons'  wives  with  thee :  "  "  fowl  after  their  kind, 
cattle  after  their  kind,  every  creeping  thing  of  the 
ground  after  its  kind :  "  "  take  unto  thee  of  all  food 
that  is  eaten,  and  gather  it  to  thee ;  and  it  shall  be 
for  food  for  thee  and  for  them:"  "thus  did  Noah; 
according  to  all  that  God  commanded  him,  so  did  he." 
There  is  here  an  almost  legal  precision  and  elabora- 
tion of  detail.  Note  further  that  two  of  every  sort  of 
living  thing  are  to  be  taken  into  the  ark. 

And  the  Lord  said  unto  Noah,  Come  thou  and  all 
thy  house  into  the  ark ;  for  thee  have  I  seen  righteous 
before  me  in  this  generation.  Of  every  clean  beast  thou 
shalt  take  to  thee  seven  and  seven,  the  male  and  his 
female ;  and  of  the  beasts  that  are  not  clean  two,  the 
male  and  his  female ;  of  the  fowl  also  of  the  air,  seven 
and  seven,  male  and  female :  to  keep  seed  alive  upon  the 
face  of  all  the  earth.  For  yet  seven  days,  and  I  will 
cause  it  to  rain  upon  the  earth  forty  days  and  forty 
nights  ;  and  every  living  thing  that  I  have  made  will  I 
destroy  from  off  the  face  of  the  ground.  And  Noah  did 
according  unto  all  that  the  Lord  commanded  him  (Gen. 
vii.  1-5). 

At  once  we  are  struck  with  the  change  in  the  name 
of  the  Divine  Being.  In  this  section  the  Lord  invites 
Noah  into  the  ark,  instructs  him  to  take  with  him  of 
clean  beasts  seven  pairs,  and  of  unclean  one  pair. 


THE    METHODS   OF   CRITICISM     147 

Now  this  section  cannot  be  a  continuation  of  the  last, 
for  according  to  verse  22  of  that  section  Noah  and  his 
family  with  the  animals  are  already  in  the  ark ;  for 
it  is  recorded  that  he  did  what  God  commanded  him, 
and  that  was  the  substance  of  the  command.  This 
section  is  therefore  parallel  to  the  last,  recording, 
like  it,  the  command  of  the  Lord  to  Noah,  and  Noah's 
execution  of  that  command.  Notice  that  verse  5  is  prac- 
tically the  same  as  verse  22,  with  the  significant  change 
in  the  use  of  the  divine  names.  Further,  the  passage 
is  not  expressed  with  the  same  minute  elaboration  as 
the  last.  For  example,  instead  of  "thou,  and  thy 
sons,  and  thy  wife,  and  thy  sons'  wives,"  appears  the 
simpler  phrase  "  thou  and  thy  house."  There  is  an 
important  difference,  too,  between  the  two  sections  in 
the  number  of  animals  to  be  taken  into  the  ark  :  in 
the  former  passage,  it  was  two  of  every  kind;  here, 
two  of  unclean  and  seven  pairs  of  clean.  It  has  often 
been  said  that  the  second  passage  simply  amplifies 
the  first  and  makes  its  general  directions  more  ex- 
plicit. But  that  would  surely  be  an  awkward  style  of 
amplification  —  to  begin  by  saying  "  a  pair  of  every 
sort,"  and  to  go  on  by  explaining  "  one  pair  of  one 
sort  and  seven  pairs  of  another  sort."  But  there  is 
no  necessity  for  accusing  the  original  writer  of  such 
literary  impotence.  For  this  passage  is,  as  we  have 
seen,  not  continuous  with  the  former,  but  parallel  to 
it ;  and  therefore  we  are  prepared  to  do  justice  to  this 
important  distinction  between  the  two.  It  is  further 
no  accident  that,  in  the  two  passages,  different  words 
are  used  to  express  "  male  and  female "  —  in  the 
former  (vi.  19)  the  words  are  somewhat  technical,  in 


148     OLD    TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 


the  latter  they  are  more  ordinary  —  "  the  man  and  his 
wife."  (So  twice  in  vii.  2.) J 

We  have  now  a  number  of  phenomena  on  the  basis 
of  which  we  may  form  a  tentative  judgment.  The 
narrative  is  obviously  not  a  unity.  Two  accounts 
are  given  of  the  corruption  of  the  earth,  of  God's 
command  to  Noah  to  enter  the  ark  with  his  family 
and  with  specimens  of  all  the  animals,  and  of  Noah's 
execution  of  that  command.  These  accounts  are 
distinguished  by  different  names  for  God,  by  a  some- 
what different  vocabulary  {e.g.  destroy,  male  and 
female),  and  by  not  unimportant  differences  in  the 
recital  of  fact  (e.g.  in  the  number  and  classification 
of  the  animals  which  entered  the  ark).  Practically 
all  doubt  of  the  compositeness  of  the  story  is  dispelled 
when  the  parallel  accounts  are  placed  side  by  side. 

Corruption  of  the  earth  (vi.  5-13). 


Prophetic  Narrative 
(Jehovistic) . 


And  the  Lord  saw  that 
the  wickedness  of  man  was 
great  in  the  earth,  and  that 
every  imagination  of  the 


Priestly  Narrative 
(Elohistic). 

These  are  the  generations 
of  Noah.  Noah  was  a 
righteous  man,  and  perfect 
in  his  generations :  Noah 
walked  with  God.  And 
Noah  begat  three  sons, 
Shem,  Ham,  and  Japheth 
(vi.  9,  10). 

And  the  earth  was  cor- 
rupt before  God,  and  the 
earth  was  filled  with  vio- 
lence (vi.  11). 


1  vii.  3,  which  uses  the  priestly  words  for  "  male  and  female,"  has 
been  touched  by  the  redactor. 


THE    METHODS   OF   CRITICISM     149 


thoughts  of  his  heart  was 
only  evil  continually  (vi.  5). 
And  it  repented  the  Lord 
that  he  had  made  man  on 
the  earth,  and  it  grieved 
him  at  his  heart  (vi.  6). 

And  the  Lord  said,  I  will 
destroy  man  whom  I  have 
created  from  the  face  of  the 
ground ;  both  man,  and 
beast,  and  creeping  thing, 
and  fowl  of  the  air ;  for  it 
repenteth  me  that  I  have 
made  them  (vi.  7). 

But  Noah  found  grace  in 
the  eyes  of  the  Lord  (vi.  8). 


And  God  saw  the  earth, 
and,  behold,  it  was  corrupt; 
for  all  flesh  had  corrupted 
his  way  upon  the  earth 
(vi.  12). 

And  God  said  unto  Noah, 
the  end  of  all  flesh  is  come 
before  me ;  for  the  earth  is 
filled  with  violence  through 
them;  and,  behold,  I  will 
destroy  them  with  the 
earth  (vi.  13). 


Description  of  the  ark  (vi.  14-16). 
The  divine  command  and  Noah's  execution  thereof 
(vi.  17-vii.  5). 


The  Prophetic  Narrative 
(Jehovistic). 

For 1  yet  seven  days,  and  I 
will  cause  it  to  rain  upon  the 
earth  forty  days  and  forty 
nights ;  and  every  living 
thing  that  I  have  made  will 
I  destroy  from  off  the  face 
of  the  ground  (vii.  4). 

And  the  Lord  said  unto 


The  Priestly  Narrative 
(Elohistic). 

And  I,  behold,  I  do  bring 
the  flood  of  waters  upon 
the  earth,  to  destroy  all 
flesh,  wherein  is  the  breath 
of  life,  from  under  heaven ; 
every  thing  that  is  in  the 
earth  shall  die  (vi.  17). 

But  I  will  establish  my 


1  The  order  of  the  priestly  narrative,  which  determined  the  final  form 
of  the  story,  has  here  been  followed.  Verse  4  has  been  printed  out  of 
its  place,  simply  to  show  its  parallelism  with  vi.  17. 


150     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 


Noah,  Come  thou  and  all 
thy  house  into  the  ark ;  for 
thee  have  I  seen  righteous 
before  me  in  this  genera- 
tion (vii.  1). 

Of  every  clean  beast  thou 
shalt  take  to  thee  seven  and 
seven,  the  male  and  his  fe- 
male; and  of  the  beasts 
that  are  not  clean  two,  the 
male  and  his  female  (vii.  2). 

Of  the  fowl  also  of  the 
air,  seven  and  seven,  male 
and  female :  to  keep  seed 
alive  upon  the  face  of  all 
the  earth  (vii.  3). 


And  Noah  did  according 
to  all  that  the  Lord  com- 
manded him  (vii.  5). 


covenant  with  thee;  and 
thou  shalt  come  into  the 
ark,  thou,  and  thy  sons,  and 
thy  wife,  and  thy  sons' 
wives  with  thee  (vi.  18). 

And  of  every  living  thing 
of  all  flesh,  two  of  every 
sort  shalt  thou  bring  into 
the  ark,  to  keep  them  alive 
with  thee;  they  shall  be 
male  and  female  (vi.  19). 

Of  the  fowl  after  their 
kind,  and  of  the  cattle  after 
their  kind,  of  every  creep- 
ing thing  of  the  ground 
after  its  kind,  two  of  every 
sort  shall  come  unto  thee, 
to  keep  them  alive  (vi.  20). 

And  take  thou  unto  thee 
of  all  food  that  is  eaten,  and 
gather  it  to  thee;  and  it 
shall  be  for  food  for  thee, 
and  for  them  (vi.  21). 

Thus  did  Noah ;  accord- 
ing to  all  that  God  com- 
manded him,  so  did  he 
(vi.  22). 


Any  one  who  is  convinced  that  this  method  and 
analysis  are  correct  has  a  good  deal  of  material  which 
will  guide  him  in  his  analysis  of  the  rest  of  the  story. 
The  name  of  the  Divine  Being,  where  it  exists,  is  an 
exceedingly  important  clue ;  where  it  does  not  exist, 
there  are  other  clues  practically  as  decisive.  For 
example,  every  one  has  been  puzzled  by  the  duration 


THE    METHODS   OF   CRITICISM     151 

of  the  flood,  the  truth  being  that  each  version  has  its 
own  story  to  tell.  The  Jehovist  narrative  announces 
that  it  will  come  in  seven  days  and  last  forty  (vii.  4), 
therefore  the  verses  which  involve  this  view  of  the 
narrative  will  belong  to  this  source,  for  example,  vii. 
12  and  viii.  6-12,  etc. ;  according  to  this  version,  the 
flood  lasted  in  all  sixty-eight  days  (7+40+7+7+7). 
The  other  verses,  which  represent  the  waters  as  pre- 
vailing for  one  hundred  and  fifty  days  (e.g.  vii.  24), 
and  assign  a  period  of  over  a  year  (cf.  vii.  11  and 
viii.  14)  to  the  general  duration  of  the  flood,  will 
belong  to  the  other  narrative.  So  the  verses  which, 
whether  implicitly  or  explicitly,  distinguish  the  clean 
from  the  unclean  animals,  will  belong  to  the  Jehovist 
document  (e.  g.  viii.  20)  ;  those  which  do  not,  will  be- 
long to  the  other  (e.  g.  vii.  15).  The  growing  knowl- 
edge of  the  characteristics  of  the  documents  which 
every  new  such  acquisition  brings,  enables  us  to  delimit 
the  remaining  verses  still  further ;  until  finally  every 
verse,  by  a  natural  and  easy  process,  finds  its  place 
within  one  document  or  the  other.  In  this  way  the 
extraordinary  repetitions,1  elaborations,  and  sequences 
are  satisfactorily  explained. 

Now  this  is  the  critical  method.  Is  it  reasonable 
or  is  it  not  ?  The  phenomena  are  too  striking  to  be 
evaded  ;  does  this  explanation  satisfy  them  or  does  it 
not  ?  It  is  not  a  theory  introduced  ab  extra :  it  is  an 
explanation  suggested  by  the  phenomena  themselves. 
The  alternative,  after  making  every  allowance  for  the 
historiographical  methods  of  the  East,  is  to  suppose 
that  the  author  —  on  the  assumption  that  the  piece  is 

1  Cf.  vii.  13,  14  (P.)  with  vii.  7,  8  (J.). 


152     OLD    TESTAMENT  CRITICISM 

an  original  unity  —  was  destitute  of  the  first  elements 
of  literary  skill ;  and  this  surely  cannot  be  said  of  the 
writer  who  gave  us  so  fine  a  passage  as  viii.  6-12. 
Rather  is  it  not  clear  that  this  is  the  work  of  a  re- 
dactor, careful,  conservative,  and  reverent,  who  had 
before  him  two  documents,  and  whose  aim  was  to 
preserve  as  much  as  he  consistently  could  of  both  ? 


II 

From  history  let  us  pass  to  prophecy.  Here  the 
critical  method  may  be  illustrated  by  a  brief  consider- 
ation of  the  latter  part  of  Isaiah  (chs.  xl.  to  Ixvi.)  ; 
and  for  our  purpose  a  section  of  this  will  be  sufficient 
(xl.  to  xlviii.).  Why  is  it  that  the  critics  so  unani- 
mously deny  this  prophecy  to  Isaiah,  the  son  of  Amoz, 
and  assign  it  to  the  exile  (circa  540)  ?  Not  because 
they  regard  prediction  as  impossible  ;  the  reality  of 
prediction  is  repeatedly  claimed  by  this  prophecy,1 
and  the  critical  no  less  than  the  traditional  view  of 
the  prophecy  compels  us  to  admit  the  truth  of  the 
claim.  The  prophet  predicts  something,  and  his 
prediction  is  fulfilled.  But  what  is  that  something 
which  he  predicts  ?  It  is  not  the  exile  itself  —  that 
is  everywhere  presupposed  —  but  redemption  from 
the  exile ;  and  that  redemption  was  accomplished 
through  the  instrumentality  of  Cyrus,  on  the  critical 
view,  not  indeed  long  after,  but  in  any  case  after, 
the  prediction  itself  was  made.  So  it  is  not  a  ques- 
tion of  the  possibility  or  impossibility  of  predictive 
prophecy.  The  critics  are  led  to  their  belief  in  the 

1  Cf.  xli.  26;  xlii.  9;  xliv.  8;  xlviii.  3-7. 


THE    METHODS   OF   CRITICISM     153 

exilic  origin  of  the  prophecy  by  a  consideration  of  the 
facts  themselves. 

What,  then,  are  those  facts  ?  Obviously  the  legiti- 
mate impression  which  the  section  makes  as  a  whole 
can  only  be  gathered  from  continuous  reading.  But 
some  of  the  more  significant  verses  may  be  singled 
out  for  special  consideration. 

Israel  is  in  despair. 

Why  sayest  thou,  0  Jacob,  and  speakest,  O  Israel, 
My  way  is  hid  from  the  Lord,  and  my  judgment  is 
passed  away  from  my  God  ?  (xl.  27). 

From  what  or  from  whom  is  she  suffering  ? 

I  was  wroth  with  my  people,  I  profaned  mine  inheri- 
tance, and  gave  them  into  thine  hand. 

Thou  didst  show  them  no  mercy ;  upon  the  aged  hast 
thou  very  heavily  laid  thy  yoke  (xlvii.  6). 

Into  whose  hands,  then,  was  Israel  given  ?  Into  the 
hands  of  the  Chaldseans ;  for 

Sit  silent,  and  enter  into  darkness,  0  daughter  of  the 
Chaldseans  : 

For  thou  shalt  no  more  be  called  the  Lady  of  king- 
doms .  .  . 

I  gave  them  into  thine  hand  (xlvii.  5,  6). 

The  Babylonian  background  is  as  plain  as  words 
can  make  it.  In  the  light  of  the  following  verses,  it 
is  clear  that  Israel  is  languishing  on  Babylonian  soil, 
if  not  in  Babylonian  prisons. 

For  your  sake  I  have  sent  to  Babylon  (xliii.  14). 
Go  ye  forth  of  Babylon,  flee  ye  from  the  Chaldseans 
(xlviii.  20). 


154     OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

Israel's  own  cities,  including  the  capital  with  its 
temple,  are  destroyed. 

(He)  saith  of  Jerusalem,  She  shall  be  inhabited ; 
And  of  the  cities  of  Judah,  They  shall  be  built  .  .  . 
Saying  of  Jerusalem,  She  shall  be  built ; 
And  of  the  temple,  Thy  foundation  shall  be  laid  (xliv. 
26-28). 

He  (f.  e.  Cyrus)  shall  build  my  city  (xlv.  13). 

The  people  then  are  exiles  in  Babylon. 
He  shall  let  my  exiled  ones  go  free  (xlv.  13). 

And  it  is  these  broken-hearted  exiles  whom  the 
prophet  is  addressing  ;  his  audience  is  a  real,  not  an 
imaginary,  one. 

Lift  up  your  eyes  on  high  (xl.  26). 

On  this  scene  of  despair  and  sorrow  the  prophet 
appears  with  a  message  of  comfort. 

Comfort  ye,  comfort  ye,  my  people  (xl.  1). 

For  redemption  is  drawing  nigh. 

Speak  home  to  the  heart  of  Jerusalem,  and  cry  unto  her 
That  her  warfare  is  accomplished  (xl.  2). 

Israel's  God  will  not  forget  her. 

Thou  shalt  not  be  forgotten  of  me  (xliv.  21). 

What  Israel  needs,  then,  and  is  promised,  is  redemp- 
tion from  exile.  But  how  is  that  to  be  brought  about  ? 
By  a  great  conqueror  who  is  twice  expressly  named  as 
Cyrus,  and  occasionally  alluded  to  as  a  figure  almost 
too  familiar  to  need  naming : 


THE    METHODS   OF   CRITICISM     155 

Named.  —  That  saith  of  Cyrus,  He  is  my  shepherd, 

And  shall  perform  all  my  pleasure  (xliv.  28). 

Thus  saith  the  Lord  to  his  anointed,  to  Cyrus,  whose 

right  hand  I  have  holden  to  subdue  nations  before  him 

...  I  will  go  before  thee  (xlv.  1,  2). 

Unnamed.  —  I  have  raised  him  up  in  righteousness 
(xlv.  13). 

I  have  raised  up  one  from  the  north,  and  he  is  come  ; 

From  the  rising  of  the  sun  one  that  calleth  upon  my 
name  (xli.  25). 

Cyrus,  then,  is  to  be  the  human  instrument  of  the 
redemption  and  restoration. 

He  shall  build  my  city,  and  let  my  exiled  ones  go  free 
(xlv.  13). 

And  the  redemption  of  Israel  is  to  come  through  the 
overthrow  of  Babylon  by  Cyrus. 

He  shall  perform  his  pleasure  on  Babylon, 

And  his  arm  shall  be  on  the  Chaldseans  (xlviii.  14). 

The  situation  is  very  plain.  Israelis  enduring  the 
sorrows  of  exile  in  Babylon.  But  a  great  menace  to 
the  Babylonian  power  has  been  raised  up  in  the  per- 
son of  Cyrus.  He  has  embarked  on  his  victorious 
career.  The  prophet  sees  in  him  one  who  is  divinely 
called  to  deliver  Israel.  Redemption  is  only  a  ques- 
tion of  a  year  or  two.  Soon  the  triumphant  Cyrus 
will  be  upon  Babylon ;  then  Israel  shall  be  free. 
She  will  go  home  to  her  own  land ;  her  cities  and 
temples  will  be  rebuilt. 

If  there  had  been  no  tradition  to  the  effect  that  this 
part  of  the  book  was  written  by  the  Isaiah  who  spoke 


156     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

more  than  a  century  and  a  half  before,  undoubtedly 
we  should  have  supposed  that  the  prophet  who  uttered 
this  original  and  inspiriting  word  lived  and  moved  in 
the  very  midst  of  the  situation  which  he  so  sympa- 
thetically describes — that  he  was  himself  a  member 
of  the  people  whose  sorrow  he  meets  with  his  message 
of  hope.  But  a  tradition  which  goes  back  at  least  to 
the  second  century  B.  c.  points  the  other  way.  It  is 
very  natural  to  suppose  that  a  section  of  the  book 
bearing  Isaiah's  name  should  have  been  written  by 
him.  But  the  assumption  underlying  this  expectation 
is  that  every  part  of  a  prophecy  must  come  from  the 
prophet  by  whose  name  the  book  is  known.  In  the 
Book  of  Isaiah,  however,  there  are  the  best  of  reasons 
for  supposing  that  this  is  not  the  case.  It  is  hardly 
reasonable  to  suppose,  for  example,  that  the  section 
embracing  chs.  xxxvi.  to  xxxix.  is  from  him,  as  he  is 
spoken  of  throughout  in  the  third  person  (xxxvii.  21 ; 
xxxviii.  1,  21)  and  the  very  same  section,  which  is 
historical  rather  than  prophetic,  occurs  in  the  Book 
of  Kings  (2  Kings  xviii.  17-xx.  19).  And  there  are 
other  sections  which  are  expressly  assigned  to  him 
(cf.  xiii.  1),  as  they  would  hardly  have  needed  to  be, 
if  the  opening  verse  was  a  guarantee  that  the  whole 
book  came  from  his  hand.  These  facts  are  a  suffi- 
cient answer  to  the  argument  that  Isaiah  xl.-lxvi. 
must  be  from  Isaiah,  because  they  appear  in  the  book 
known  by  his  name. 

If  there  is  nothing  of  this  kind,  then,  to  compel  us 
to  believe  that  Isaiah  was  the  author,  it  remains  to 
ask  who  the  real  author  was,  or,  at  any  rate,  when  he 
lived.  Now  one  of  the  cardinal  principles  of  prophecy 


THE    METHODS   OF   CRITICISM     157 

—  a  principle  to  which,  apart  from  this  disputed  sec- 
tion, there  is  no  exception  —  is  that  the  message  of  a 
prophet  is  not  only  addressed  to,  but  relevant  to,  the 
contemporary  situation.  Doubtless  the  prophet  sees 
beyond  that.  His  power  to  do  that  —  to  ascend  his 
watch  tower,  like  Habakkuk,  and  survey  the  dis- 
tant sweep  of  the  field  —  is  partly  what  makes  him  a 
prophet.  There  need  be  no  attempt  to  deny  that  the 
prophet  could  predict :  that,  as  we  saw,  is  claimed  by 
this  prophecy  and  admitted  by  the  critic.  But  in  the 
large  body  of  his  message  he  speaks  to  his  own  con- 
temporaries :  rebukes  their  sins,  and  comforts  their 
sorrows.  This  is  a  simple  fact.  Amos  and  Hosea 
address  themselves  to  the  situation  of  Jeroboam  the 
Second's  time.  The  prophecy  of  Jeremiah  is  so  in- 
woven with  contemporary  history  that  it  is  practically 
our  only  authority  for  the  details  of  that  history.  Eze- 
kiel  speaks  to  the  exiles,  deals  with  their  fears,  hopes, 
needs,  and  problems  ;  Haggai  and  Zechariah  appeal  to 
the  situation  after  the  return ;  and  so  on.  We  will 
not  argue  that  no  moral  end  would  be  served  through 
a  prophet  being  transported  in  spirit  into  another 
time  ;  nor  will  we  say  that  it  is  impossible.  But  this 
we  can  say,  that  analogy  is  completely  against  it. 
In  every  other  case  1  the  time  in  which  a  prophet 
lived  could  be  at  least  approximately,  and  in  certain 
cases  accurately,  inferred  from  the  substance  of  his 
prophecy.  If  that  rule  held  here  —  and  we  have  seen 
that  the  appearance  of  the  prophecy  in  the  Book  of 
Isaiah  does  not  bind  us  to  the  Isaianic  authorship  — 

1  With  the  possible  exception  of  Joel,  where  much  of  the  data  is 
capable  of  being  referred  either  to  pre-exilic  or  post-exilic  times. 


158     OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

then  we  should  infer  without  hesitation  that  the 
author  lived  during  the  Babylonian  exile,  and  deliv- 
ered his  message  not  long  before  Cyrus  took  Babylon. 
While  the  oppressor  in  Isaiah's  time  is  Assyria,  to 
this  author  it  is  Babylon.  While  Jeremiah  predicts 
the  exile,  this  author  presupposes  it.  He  names  Cyrus 
not  in  the  language  of  prediction,  but  as  an  existing, 
mighty  fact  —  a  fact  of  terror  to  Babylon,  of  comfort 
and  reassurance  to  Israel. 

Criticism  has  much  more  to  say  in  support  of  the 
late  date  of  this  section.  But  what  has  already  been 
offered  is  a  normal  specimen  of  critical  method.  Is 
it  reasonable  or  is  it  not  ? 


HI 

Let  us  now  glance  at  the  critical  method  in  its 
application  to  the  Psalms ;  and  for  our  purpose  it 
will  be  instructive  to  take  a  psalm  ascribed  to  David. 
We  here  select  the  fortieth,  as  having  a  special  inter- 
est of  its  own.  To  begin  with,  the  critics,  passing  at 
first  over  the  superscription,  "  For  the  Chief  Musi- 
cian. A  Psalm  of  David,"  which  is  obviously  no  part 
of  the  psalm  proper,  would  at  once  proceed  to  the 
internal  evidence  afforded  by  the  Psalm  itself.  The 
most  obvious  point  about  it  is  its  sudden  change  of 
tone  in  the  middle  from  gratitude  to  lament.  The 
temper  of  both  parts  of  the  Psalm  is  so  different 
that  some  are  disposed  to  believe  that  two  independ- 
ent psalms  have  been  put  together.  It  will  be  better, 
however,  to  find,  if  possible,  some  historical  situation 
within  which  both  parts  of  the  psalm  are  at  the  same 


THE    METHODS   OF    CRITICISM     159 

time  intelligible.  Assuming  for  the  moment  that  the 
psalm  is  a  unity  —  and  it  is  at  any  rate  a  unity  to  the 
final  editor  and  to  us  —  let  us  try  to  discover  who 
the  speaker  is. 

I  waited  patiently  for  the  Lord ; 

And  he  inclined  unto  me,  and  heard  my  cry  (verse  1). 

Who  is  the  I  ?  Is  it  an  individual  or  the  church 
that  is  speaking  ?  Verse  3  with  its  "  praise  to  our 
God,"  suggests  —  though  it  does  not  absolutely  com- 
pel —  a  wider  outlook  than  the  individual ;  but  this 
view  receives  substantial  confirmation  from  verse  5, 
not  only  because  it  speaks  of  the  many  wonderful 
works  which  Jehovah  has  done,  but  still  more  because 
of  the  words 

And  thy  thoughts  which  are  to  us-ward. 

Is  the  wider  interpretation  of  the  /then  not  the  more 
natural  ?  In  that  case,  it  is  the  church  that  is  speak- 
ing, or  at  least  the  individual  in  the  name  of  the 
church.  Now  let  us  look  at  verse  2. 

He  brought  me  up  also  out  of  an  horrible  pit,  out  of 
the  miry  clay ; 

And  he  set  my  feet  upon  a  rock,  and  established  my 
goings. 

Is  this  to  be  interpreted  literally  or  metaphori- 
cally ?  Some,  interpreting  it  literally,  refer  it  to  the 
fortunes  of  Jeremiah  in  the  dungeon.  But  apart 
from  the  fact  that  the  metaphorical  interpretation  is 
equally  possible,  and  perhaps  more  natural,  the  literal 
view  will  be  impossible,  if  we  were  right  in  conclud- 


160     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

ing  that  this  psalm  reflects  the  experience  of  the 
church.  In  that  case,  we  should  have  to  find  some 
horror  in  the  history  of  the  people,  which  could  be 
fittingly  described  in  these  words  ;  and  although  we 
know  that  history  much  too  little  to  estimate  all  the 
possibilities,  it  will  hardly  be  denied  that  these  meta- 
phors would  appropriately  characterize  the  exile. 
The  probability  of  this  will  have  to  be  tested  by  the 
subsequent  verses. 

And  he  hath  put  a  new  song  in  my  mouth, 

Even  praise  unto  our  God, 

Many  shall  see  it,  and  fear, 

And  shall  trust  in  the  Lord  (verse  3). 

Now  the  new  song  is  the  term  applied  in  the  latter 
part  of  Isaiah  to  the  song  which  Israel  is  to  sing  to 
Jehovah  for  His  deliverance  of  the  people  from  exile. 

Sing  unto  the  Lord  a  new  song  (Is.  xlii.  10). 

But  more.  The  effect  of  the  deliverance  wrought  for 
Israel  in  the  psalm  is  to  be  the  conversion  of  many 
to  Jehovah,  that  is,  to  Israel's  God  ;  and,  though  not 
absolutely  necessary,  it  is  most  natural  to  suppose 
that  those  who  are  to  be  converted  are  heathen.1 
Now  precisely  this  point  —  the  world-wide  influence 
and  destiny  of  Israel's  gospel  of  redemption  —  is 
repeatedly  emphasized  in  the  latter  part  of  Isaiah  :  cf . 
the  passage  already  quoted  - 

Sing  unto  the  Lord  a  new  song, 

And  his  praise  from  the  end  of  the  earth  (Is.  xlii.  10). 

1  This  point  is  obscured  by  the  rendering  The  Lord. 


THE    METHODS    OF    CRITICISM     161 

Cf.  Ps.  Ixvii.  1,  2. 

God  be  merciful  to  us,  and  bless  us.  .  .  . 
That  thy  way  may  be  known  upon  earth, 
Thy  saving  health  among  all  nations. 

Now  the  full  force  of  Ps.  xl.  5  begins  to  be  felt. 
Many  are  the  wonderful  works  which  thou  hast  done. 

This  verse  is  a  swift  retrospect  of  God's  love  from  the 
distant  days  of  the  exodus  to  the  recent  deliverance 
from  exile.  In  such  a  context  —  cf.  thy  thoughts 
which  are  to  us-ward  —  it  is  really  too  large  to  be 
applicable  only  to  the  individual. 

How,  then,  is  Israel  to  recompense  this  God  for 
all  His  goodness  ?  Not  through  sacrifice  and  offer- 
ing, but  through  obedience  to  His  will,  the  law  writ- 
ten on  the  pages  of  Scripture  and  on  the  heart ; 
for 

Sacrifice  and  offering  thou  hast  no  delight  in ; 
Mine  ears  hast  thou  opened: 

Burnt  offering  and  sin  offering  hast  thou  not  required. 
Then  said  I,  Lo,  I  am  come ; 

In  the  roll  of  the  book  it  is  prescribed  to  me  (verses 
6,  7,  E.  V.,  margin). 

What  is  this  book  ?  Clearly,  in  such  a  context,  a 
book  which  laid  little  stress  on  the  requirements  of 
sacrifice.  Now  that  condition  is  hardly  satisfied  by 
the  Pentateuch,  of  which  so  large  a  proportion  is  taken 
up  with  the  very  things  which  God  is  here  declared 
not  to  require.  Whatever  the  book  was,  it  must,  it 

would  seem,  have  included  at  least  some  of  the  eighth 

11 


162     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

century  prophets :  the  sentiment  of  the  psalm  is  pre- 
cisely paralleled  by  such  a  passage  as  Hosea  vi.  6  —  I 
desire  mercy  and  not  sacrifice  ;  cf,  Amos  v.  25,  Micah 
vi.  6-8.  This  consideration  would  make  an  exilic 
date  almost  the  earliest  possible ;  and  thus  our  view 
of  the  psalm  receives  important  confirmation.  But 
the  exile  would  seem  to  be  over  ;  the  song  of  deliver- 
ance is  already  in  Israel's  mouth.  And  if  the  latter 
part  of  the  psalm  is  connected  with  the  former,  as 
it  well  may  be,  then  the  whole  psalm  might  come 
from  a  period  soon 1  after  the  return,  when  the 
brilliant  hopes  of  the  exiles  had  received  so  bitter  a 
disappointment. 

In  this  way,  a  psalm  which  a  very  ancient  tradition 
ascribes  to  David,  is  assigned  by  criticism  to  a  period 
later  than  him  by  five  centuries.  The  result  may  be 
startling,  but  is  the  process  by  which  it  is  reached 
unnatural  or  unreasonable  ?  It  is  not  claimed  that 
the  result  is  certain ;  only  that  it  is  highly  probable, 
and  that  it  meets  the  varied  elements  of  the  case 
more  adequately  than  does  the  view  of  the  author- 
ship implied  by  the  superscription. 

Illustrations  of  critical  method  have  now  been 
drawn  from  history,  prophecy,  and  poetry.  These 
illustrations  are  perfectly  typical ;  it  is  in  these  ways 
that  criticism  works.  Mathematical  accuracy  in  the 
results  is  not  to  be  expected,  as  the  material  is  too 
meagre  to  admit  of  it ;  but,  by  the  use  of  these  and 
similar  methods,  results  have  been  reached  along 
certain  lines  which  are  so  highly  probable  as  to  be 

1  Or  long  after,  if  we  assume  that  verse  7  implies  the  practical 
canonicity  of  the  prophets. 


THE    METHODS   OF   CRITICISM     163 

practically  certain,  and  which  are  commanding  an 
ever-widening  circle  of  allegiance.  Are  these  methods 
legitimate  and  reasonable  or  are  they  not  ? 


IV 

Let  us  now  briefly  consider  one  of  the  problems  in 
another  department,  of  which  criticism  has  keenly 
felt  the  pressure,  and  the  way  in  which  a  solution  has 
been  sought  —  the  problem  of  the  patriarchal  stories. 
Are  they  strictly  historical  or  are  they  legendary? 
Now  it  must  be  confessed  that  the  discussion  of  this 
question  has  occasionally  been  marked,  on  both  sides, 
by  somewhat  rash  and  inconsiderate  dogmatism.  At 
the  same  time,  the  question  is  not  so  simple  as  it 
looks  to  one  who  has  never  gone  into  it  and  it  may 
be  worth  while  to  state  some  of  the  difficulties  which 
have  led  the  critics  to  doubt  the  strict  historicity  of 
the  narratives;  for,  if  there  has  been  dogmatism, 
there  has  also  been  argument. 

(i)  First,  then,  it  is  obvious  that  the  genealogies 
cannot  always  be  literally  interpreted.  An  examina- 
tion of  Genesis  x.,  for  example,  proves  that  names 
which  seem  to  be  names  of  persons  are  often  in  real- 
ity names  of  peoples  or  countries.  The  Hebrew 
plural  masculine  ends  in  im  ;  any  one  who  reads  the 
chapter  through  with  this  fact  in  mind,  and  notes  the 
number  of  words  which  have  this  ending,  will  be  as- 
tonished. Take,  for  example,  verses  13  and  14 :  Miz- 
raim  begat  Ludim  with  six  others  whose  names  end 
in  im.  Mizraim  is  the  regular  word  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment for  Egypt;  so  that  this  verse  is  only  another 


164     OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

way  of  saying  that  the  Lydians,  etc.,  are  sprung  from 
Egypt.  Many  names  which  are  not  plural  in  form, 
yet  are  intended  without  doubt  to  refer  to  peoples  ; 
see,  in  particular,  verses  15-19 :  Canaan  begat  .  .  . 
the  Jebusite,  and  the  Amorite,  and  the  Girgashite  ;  and 
the  Hivite,  and  the  Arkite,  and  the  Sinite  ;  and  the 
Arvadite,  and  the  Zemarite,  and  the  Hamathite.  In 
every  one  of  these  cases  the  article  is  used ;  the  form 
of  the  word  is  precisely  the  same  as  in  the  similar 
enumerations  of  the  Canaanite  peoples  scattered 
throughout  the  Pentateuch,  cf.  Gen.  xv.  19-21,  where, 
in  spite  of  the  plural  of  the  English  Authorized  Ver- 
sion, the  Hebrew  words  with  the  single  exception  of 
the  Rephaim,  are  in  the  singular.  In  other  cases, 
some  of  the  names  are  really  names  of  places ;  e.  g., 
Tarshish,  in  verse  4,  a  son  of  Javan,  or  Greece.  This 
whole  verse  offers  an  instructive  combination  of 
places  and  peoples :  The  sons  of  Javan ;  Elishah, 
and  Tarshish,  Kittim,  and  Dodanim  (or  rather  Roda- 
nim).  The  first  two  words  are  names  of  places  not 
yet  with  certainty  identified,  while  the  last  two  are 
names  of  peoples,  probably  the  inhabitants  of  Cyprus 
and  Rhodes  ;  and  the  whole  verse  practically  means, 
"  connected  with  Greece  were  her  colonies  in  Italy 
and  Sicily,  together  with  the  islands  of  Cyprus  and 
Rhodes."  The  whole  makes  much  the  same  kind  of 
impression  as  if  we  were  to  say  that  the  sons  of 
Britain  were  England,  Scotland,  the  Irish  and  the 
Welsh,  and  England  begat  the  Canadian  and  the 
Australian,  etc.  Obviously  the  interest  of  this  table 
in  Genesis  x.  is  in  no  way  diminished  by  this  circum- 
stance ;  only  it  is  the  interest  of  ethnology  colored 


THE    METHODS   OF   CRITICISM     165 

by  geographical  and  historical  associations,  not  the 
interest  of  genealogy.  From  this  point  of  view,  it  is 
one  of  the  most  important  ethnological  monuments  of 
the  ancient  world.  It  illustrates  the  relations  con- 
ceived to  subsist  between  the  peoples  of  a  large  part 
of  the  then  known  world,  and  preserves  some  valuable 
historical  and  ethnological  facts,  or  traditions,  which 
perhaps,  like  the  illustration  above  in  which  England 
begets  the  Canadian  and  Australian,  occasionally  need 
correction.  The  Hittites,  e.  #.,  were  not  racially  con- 
nected with  the  Canaanites  (verse  15)  nor  the  Canaan- 
ites  with  the  Egyptians  (cf.  verse  6,  where  the  sons  of 
Ham  are  Ethiopia,  Egypt,  North  Africa,  and  Canaan). 
It  is  considerations  like  these  which,  at  any  rate 
within  this  chapter,  are  unanswerable,  that  have  led 
many  of  the  critics  to  see  in  the  earliest  names  of 
Hebrew  story  the  personification  of  peoples  or  tribes. 
For  example,  it  is  not  a  little  surprising  to  find  that 
long  after  Abraham  is  so  old  a  man  that  the  birth  of 
a  child  to  him  is  regarded  by  Sarah  as  an  impos- 
sibility, it  is  recorded,  without  surprise  or  comment, 
that  he  had  six  children  by  his  second  wife  (Gen. 
xxv.  1,  2).  When  we  find  that  some  of  these  chil- 
dren bear  the  names  of  Arabian  tribes  (e.g.  Midian) 
and  that  the  son  of  one  of  these  children  has  three 
sons,  all  of  whose  names  end  in  im,  and  are  therefore 
names  of  peoples  (verse  3),  we  begin  to  see  the  relative 
justification  for  supposing  that  these  notices  inform 
us  about  tribal  rather  than  personal  relations.  This 
suspicion  receives  suggestive  confirmation  from  the 
word  to  Rebekah  with  regard  to  the  birth  of  her 
children. 


166     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

Two  nations  are  in  thy  womb, 

And  two  peoples  shall  be  separated  even  from  thy  bowels  ; 
And  one  people  shall  be  stronger  than  the  other  people, 
And  the  elder  shall  serve  the  younger  (Gen.  xxv.  23). 

(ii)  Another  reason  for  questioning  the  strict  his- 
toricity of  the  patriarchal  stories  is  the  vast  interval 
of  time  between  the  incidents  and  the  record  of  them. 
From  Genesis  xiv.,  the  date  of  Abraham  may  be  ap- 
proximately inferred  as  2250  B.  c.  Now  assuming  that 
the  critical  view  of  the  dates  of  the  earliest,  that  is, 
the  prophetic  documents  in  the  Pentateuch,  is  correct 
(roughly  900  to  750  B.  c.),  the  writers  stand  no  less 
than  fourteen  centuries  from  the  incidents  they  re- 
cord—  as  far  as  the  English  historian  of  to-day  is 
distant  from  St.  Columba.  Even  assuming  the 
Mosaic  authorship,  the  record  is  over  ten  centuries 
later  than  the  history.  In  other  words,  the  historian 
of  that  early  period  is  as  much  at  a  disadvantage  as 
the  modern  historian  of  the  times  of  Alfred  the  Great. 
Indeed,  unless  he  has  some  special  means  of  knowing 
the  facts,  he  is  at  a  much  greater  disadvantage ;  for 
the  modern  historian  has  chronicles  and  books  in- 
numerable to  consult,  which,  after  making  every 
allowance  for  the  widespread  knowledge  of  the  art 
of  writing  in  the  ancient  world,  has  no  real  parallel 
in  the  case  before  us.  Besides,  no  claim  is  ever  made 
by  the  writer  that  he  had  access  to  special  sources  of 
information.  So  far  as  we  can  tell,  he  may  be  de- 
pending on  tradition.  Indeed  this  would  account,  as 
nothing  else  will,  for  the  slight  discrepancies  between 
parallel  accounts ;  and  it  is  well  known  that  tradition, 
though  it  preserves  much,  loses,  confounds,  and  ob- 


THE    METHODS   OF   CRITICISM     167 

scures  much.  In  the  face  of  the  variations  which  the 
written  statements  of  Samuel  and  Kings  undergo 
about  three  centuries  afterwards  on  the  pages  of  the 
Chronicler,1  it  would  be  idle  to  deny  the  possibility  of 
even  more  serious  modifications  of  a  tradition  which 
was  purely  oral. 

It  is  only  natural,  then,  in  estimating  the  histor- 
icity of  the  patriarchal  narratives,  to  remember  the 
immense  interval  that  separates  the  incidents  from 
the  record  ;  and  whether,  in  the  absence  of  any  guar- 
antee, a  history  which  is  from  ten  to  fourteen  centuries 
later  than  the  events  with  which  it  deals,  can  have 
all  the  value  of  a  history  that  is  contemporary,  may 
well  be  the  subject  of  reverent  doubt.  Many  inci- 
dental statements  betray  the  touch  of  a  later  hand. 
Abraham,  for  example,  is  said  to  have  pursued  a  sec- 
tion of  the  invading  army  as  far  as  Dan  (Gen.  xiv. 
14).  Now  there  was  no  Dan  in  Abraham's  time; 
according  to  an  interesting  notice  in  Judges  xviii. 
29,  the  original  name  of  the  place  was  Laish  :  it  was 
not  called  Dan  till  the  time  of  the  Judges  (1200- 
1000  B.  c.).  This  fact  alone,  unless  we  assume  that 
an  original  reference  to  Laish  in  the  Abraham  story 
had  been  subsequently  altered  to  Dan,  would  be 
enough  to  bring  down  that  story  to  a  point  eleven 
hundred  years  later  ; 2  and  it  would  be  little  short  of 
a  miracle  —  so  the  critical  argument  runs — if  pure 

1  Cf.  2  Chr.  viii.  2,  where  Hiram  gives  cities  to  Solomon,  though  in 
1  Kings  ix.  11-14,  it  was  Solomon  who  had  given  them  to  Hiram,  in 
return  for  a  loan. 

2  Considerations  like  these  —  not.  to  mention  others  —  dispose  of  the 
theory,  which  has  no  support  in  fact,  probability,  or  analogy,  that  the 
traditions  were  preserved  from  the  very  earliest  times  in  writing. 


168     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

history  had  been  orally  preserved  across  so  many 
centuries.1 

(iii)  A  further  difficulty  in  the  way  of  accepting  the 
patriarchal  narratives  as  strictly  historical  has  been 
their  religious  implications.  It  is  difficult,  for  ex- 
ample, to  reconcile  the  theophanies  with  the  teaching 
about  God  in  the  New  Testament,  or  even  in  the  more 
exalted  parts  of  the  Old.  The  story  of  the  appear- 
ance of  Jehovah  to  Abraham  in  Genesis  xviii.  is  a 
singularly  attractive  one.  It  has  all  the  freshness 
and  naivete*  of  the  early  world ;  and  it  suggests  noble 
thoughts  as  to  the  fellowship  of  God  with  mortal 
men.  But  literally  interpreted,  it  has  difficulties  of 
its  own.  Are  we  to  suppose  that  God  really  ate  of 
"  the  butter,  and  milk,  and  the  calf  which  Abraham 
had  dressed "  ?  The  narrative  says  so ;  but  Christ 
says,  "  God  is  spirit ;  "  and  elsewhere  we  are  assured, 
"  No  man  hath  seen  God  at  any  time  "  (John  i.  18  ; 
cf.  vi.  46). 

There  is  a  real  difficulty  here  —  a  difficulty  which 
is  heightened  by  the  analogy  of  other  literatures ;  for 
if  it  be  a  literal  fact  that  God  stood  as  a  man  before 
Abraham,  spoke  with  him  audible  words  and  enjoyed 
his  hospitality  beneath  the  tree,  why  may  we  not  ac- 
cept Homer's  statement  as  a  literal  fact,  that  Athene 
caught  Achilles  by  his  yellow  hair  and  spoke  to  him  ? 

1  Herodotus  has  several  stories  of  prodigies  to  relate  even  of  the 
Persian  war.  Cf.  in  particular  viii.  37-39,  where  sacred  weapons  were 
set  by  unseen  hands  before  a  temple ;  two  crags  burst  away  from  Par- 
nassus, and  killed  many  of  the  Persians ;  and  two  resurrected  Greek 
heroes  of  the  olden  time,  of  more  than  human  stature,  pursued  and 
slew  the  foe.  Only  about  half  a  century  can  have  elapsed  between 
these  incidents  and  the  record  of  them. 


THE    METHODS   OF   CRITICISM     169 

Have  both  these  statements  not  to  be  tested  by  the 
notion  of  the  spirituality  of  God  ?  There  can  be  no 
question  of  their  religious  suggestiveness  and  power ; 
the  question  is  as  to  their  historicity.  And  that 
question  is  raised  not  by  the  caprice  of  the  critic, 
but,  as  we  have  seen,  by  the  express  teaching  of 
Christ.  Even  conservative  scholars  sometimes  waive 
the  historicity  of  such  theophanies.  Hdpfl,  for  ex- 
ample, writes  thus :  "  In  the  Biblical  narrative  God 
very  frequently  appears  on  the  arena  of  the  history. 
He  warns,  or  encourages  to  this  enterprise  or  that, 
frustrates  the  execution  of  a  plan,  blocks  the  way  of 
a  proposal,  rewards,  reproaches  the  children  of  Israel 
with  their  misconduct.  We  should  hardly  properly 
grasp  the  sense  of  the  Biblical  historian,  were  we  to 
suppose  that  in  all  these  cases,  God  was  immediately 
and  visibly  acting,  like  a  deus  ex  macJiina.  What  is 
here  ascribed  to  God,  will  inmost  cases,  have  been 
done  by  some  prominent  personality  or  other  who 
was  filled  with  the  spirit  of  God,  and  enjoyed  among 
the  people  the  reputation  of  being  a  man  of  God.  If 
God  made  use  of  this  man,  then  it  was  God  himself 
who  did  what  he  did." 1  This  argument,  which  is 
not  very  convincing,  and  which,  in  trying  to  save  the 
text,  takes  grave  liberties  with  its  plain  meaning,  yet 
serves  the  useful  purpose  of  emphasizing  the  difficulty 
which  is  created  for  an  honest  and  reverent  mind  by 
the  narratives  of  the  theophanies.  It  is  further  to 
be  noted  that  the  story  of  Joseph,  which  shows  a  ma- 

1  "Die  hohere  Bibelkritik,"  pp.  47,  48.  Luther  often  adopts  a 
somewhat  similar  principle.  He  thinks,  e.  g.,  that  Rebekah  may  have 
received  the  oracle  in  Gen.  xxv.  23  through  Shem. 


170     OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

turer  literary  art  than  the  earlier  stories,  does  not  pre- 
sent the  same  religious  difficulties  as  they  do.  There 
is  no  theophany  in  it  at  all ;  God  is  rather  seen  as  a 
providence,  shaping  and  governing  human  life. 

(iv)  The  religious  argument  has  also  been  urged 
from  another  and  apparently  an  opposite  side.  In 
spite  of  the  primitive  nature  of  the  theophanies,  which 
are  paralleled  by  many  other  early  literatures,  the 
general  religious  tone  of  the  patriarchs  is  much  su- 
perior to  that  of  the  heroes  in  the  Book  of  Judges.  It 
is  impossible,  some  one  has  said,  that  the  ancestors  of 
men  like  Ehud,  Gideon  and  Jephthah  could  have  led 
such  lives  as  the  patriarchs  are  recorded  to  have 
lived.  Of  course  those  who  believe  in  the  strict  his- 
toricity of  the  narratives  will  regard  the  society  re- 
flected in  the  Book  of  Judges  as  an  illustration  of  the 
too  familiar  phenomenon  known  as  degeneracy.  But 
that  interpretation,  though  possible,  is  not  necessary, 
and  most  of  the  critics  would  add,  not  probable.  In 
the  time  of  the  Judges,  for  example,  human  sacrifice 
appears  as  a  thing  that  can  be  tolerated.  It  is  not 
common  ;  it  is  an  awful  moment  when  Jephthah  offers 
his  daughter  in  sacrifice.  But  he  does  offer  her.  Now 
in  the  story  of  Abraham,  human  sacrifice  appears  as 
a  thing  intolerable,  at  least  to  the  religion  of  Jehovah. 
In  the  impulse  to  sacrifice  his  son,  Abraham  is  like 
any  other  Semite ;  the  revelation,  the  new  thing,  that 
which  is  to  distinguish  Israel's  religion  from  the  sister 
religions,  is  contained  in  the  words,  "  Lay  not  thine 
hand  upon  the  lad."  That  is  the  voice  from  heaven. 
This  story  looks  almost  like  a  protest  against  the 
practice  which  in  the  time  of  the  Judges,  could  at 


THE   METHODS   OF   CRITICISM     171 

least  be  tolerated.  It  does  not,  of  course,  necessarily 
follow  that  the  Abraham  story  is  later  than  the  other ; 
but  it  certainly  remains  a  problem  why,  if  the  religious 
attainments  of  the  patriarchal  age  were  so  high,  those 
of  the  age  of  the  judges  were  so  low.  It  is  in  large 
measure  the  noble  prophetic  tone  of  these  narratives, 
so  much  superior  to  the  tone  of  the  Judges,  and  bear- 
ing such  strong  affinities  to  the  teaching  and  spirit  of 
the  great  prophets,  that  has  confirmed  the  critics  in 
their  belief,  reached  along  other  lines  of  evidence, 
that  the  writing  of  these  stories  falls  shortly  before 
the  prophetic  period.1 

These  then  are  some  of  the  reasons  which  have  led 
the  critics  to  doubt  whether  the  patriarchal  narratives 
are,  in  the  strict  sense,  altogether  historical.2  It  is  no 
part  of  the  purpose  of  the  present  sketch  to  criticise 
the  adequacy  of  the  arguments ;  it  will  be  enough  if 
they  have  been  felt  to  be  reasonable.  Besides,  the 
same  criticism  which  has  led  to  those  conclusions,  has 
also  something  to  say  of  a  constructive  kind,  and  en- 

1  There  is  no  real  inconsistency  between  the  advanced  religious 
ideas  of  the  patriarchal  stories,  and  the  much  older  and  more  primitive 
theophanies,  with  which  those  ideas  are  often  associated.    Such  stories 
as  Gen.  xviii.  would  be  on  the  lips  of  the  people  for  generations ;  they 
constitute  part  of  the  material  by  which  the  prophetic  historian  is 
bound.    But,  as  a  rule,  he  breathes  into  them  the  profound  spirit  of 
the  prophetic  religion,  as  he  does  with  the  Babylonian  stories  of  the 
Flood,  etc.    Cf.  Chapter  X.     There  can  be  no  question  that,  whatever 
the  dates  of  the  documents  may  be,  they  contain  much  very  ancient 
material.     Everything  points  that  way. 

2  For  further  discussion,  reference  may  be  made  to  the  articles  on 
the  patriarchs  in  the  recent  Bible  dictionaries ;  also  to  Gunkel,  "  The 
Legends  of  Genesis"  (English  translation) ;  Guthe,  " Geschichte  des 
Volkes  Israel,"  pp.  161-168 ;  Reuss,  "  Geschichte  der  heiligen  Schriften 
des  A.  T.,"  pp.  163-173. 


172     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

courages  a  belief  in  the  historicity  —  if  not  of  all  the 
details  —  at  any  rate  of  the  broad  outlines  of  the  early 
Hebrew  stories.  It  has  pointed  out  that  the  amount 
and  nature  of  the  personal  detail  in  some  of  the  stories 
is  hardly  reconcilable  with  the  view  that  the  patriarchs 
are  nothing  but  personifications  of  tribes,  or  idealiza- 
tions of  Hebrew  virtues.  It  has  further  reminded  us 
that  there  is  a  double,  and  sometimes  a  triple  tradition 
for  the  early  stories  —  each  document  telling  essen- 
tially the  same  tale  with  variations,  and  thus  confirm- 
ing the  substantial  historicity  of  the  salient  facts.1 
The  discussion  may  be  concluded  in  the  sober  words 
of  Driver:  "The  view  which  on  the  whole  may  be 
said  best  to  satisfy  the  circumstances  of  the  case  is  the 
view  that  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob  are  historical 
persons,  and  that  the  accounts  which  we  have  of  them 
are  in  outline  historically  true,  but  that  their  characters 
are  idealized,  and  their  biographies  in  many  respects 
colored  by  the  feelings  and  associations  of  a  later 
age."  2  And  again :  "  It  must  further  be  allowed  that 
the  characters  of  the  patriarchs  are  colored  religiously 
by  the  feelings  and  beliefs  of  a  later  age.  In  the  days 
of  the  patriarchs,  religion  must  have  been  in  a  rudi- 
mentary stage :  there  are  traces  of  this  in  the  idea,  for 
instance,  of  the  revelations  of  deity  being  confined  to 
particular  spots,  and  in  the  reverence  paid  to  sacred 
trees  or  pillars ;  but  at  the  same  time  the  patriarchs 
often  express  themselves  in  terms  suggesting  much 
riper  spiritual  capacities  and  experiences.  Here  we 

1  See  especially  Kittel's  treatment  of  these  stories  in  his  "  History 
of  the  Hebrews." 

2  Hastings'  "  Dictionary  of  the  Bible/'  ii.  p.  534. 


THE    METHODS   OF    CRITICISM     173 

cannot  but  trace  the  hands  of  the  narrators,  who  were 
men  penetrated  by  definite  moral  and  religious  ideas, 
and  who,  writing  with  a  didactic  aim,  idealized  to  a 
certain  extent  the  characters  of  the  patriarchs,  and, 
while  not  stripping  them  of  the  distinctive  features 
with  which  they  were  traditionally  invested,  so  filled 
in  the  outlines  supplied  by  tradition  as  to  present  the 
great  figures  of  Hebrew  antiquity  as  spiritual  types, 
examples,  for  imitation,  or  warning,  as  the  case  might 
be,  for  successive  generations."  l 

1  Loc.  cit.  p.  535.  For  a  defence  of  the  historicity  of  the  patriarchal 
narratives,  see  an  article  by  Professor  Konig  on  "  Shall  we  believe  the 
Narrative  of  Israel's  growth  7  "  in  "  The  Sunday  School  Times,"  De- 
cember 14,  1901.  A  brief,  but  good  discussion  will  be  found  in  "  The 
Book  of  Genesis/'  by  Professor  G.  W.  Wade,  who  reaches  much  the 
same  conclusion  as  Driver.  "  The  patriarchal  narrative  is,  in  its  broad 
features,  historical,  but,  from  the  lateness  of  the  documents  in  which 
it  is  contained  it  may  be  suspected  of  including  an  ideal  element " 
(p.  54). 


CHAPTER   VII 

THE   ESSENCE  OF  PROTESTANTISM 

CRITICISM  is  the  inalienable  right  and  duty  of  all 
churches  which  call  themselves  Protestant ;  for  Prot- 
estantism itself,  in  the  narrower  sense  of  the  word, 
had  its  origin  in  the  fearless  criticism  of  the  then  ex- 
isting church.  In  another  sense,  Protestantism  is 
older  than  the  Reformation  ;  it  is  as  old  as  the  hatred 
of  lies  and  the  passion  for  truth.  The  essential  spirit 
of  Protestantism  has  been  often  obscured  by  the  not 
unnatural  tendency  to  identify  it  with  a  body  of  doc- 
trine, and  to  see  it  in  opposition  to  the  doctrines  of 
the  Romish  Church.  But  the  moment  it  is  so  identi- 
fied, it  ceases  to  be,  in  the  strict  sense,  Protestantism  ; 
for  as  it  originated  in  criticism  and  protest,  it  reserves 
to  itself  the  eternal  and  indefeasible  right  of  criticism 
and  protest.  In  the  words  of  Frederic  Myers,  "  One 
might  say  that  the  characteristics  of  Protestantism  lie 
rather  in  the  maintenance  of  this  spirit  of  freedom, 
than  in  the  profession  of  any  definite  peculiarities, 
either  doctrinal  or  ecclesiastical."  1  Protestantism  is 
the  spirit  that  is  ever  ready  to  challenge  all  that  ob- 
scures the  truth,  whether  that  be  the  teaching  and 
traditions  of  an  ancient  church,  the  solemn  decisions 
of  ecclesiastical  councils,  the  authoritative  decrees  of 

1  "  Catholic  Thoughts  on  the  Bible  and  Theology,"  p.  365. 


ESSENCE    OF    PROTESTANTISM     175 

Popes,  or  even  the  traditions  which  in  its  own  name 
have  been  established.  The  exigencies  of  Reformation 
controversy,  similar  in  their  effects  to  the  exigencies 
of  the  Gnostic  and  other  controversies  of  the  early 
church,  precipitated  the  beliefs  of  the  Reformation, 
in  no  long  time,  into  a  form  almost  if  not  quite  as 
scholastic  as  the  scholasticism  which  it  repudiated ; 
but  it  would  be  unfair  to  Protestantism  to  identify 
it  absolutely  with  the  particular  theological  systems 
which,  in  a  given  historical  environment,  it  more  or 
less  necessarily  assumed.  It  is  a  spirit ;  it  moves  ;  it 
impels  ;  it  compels  ;  it  revises ;  it  reforms  ;  it  creates.1 
No  historical  form  can  ever  do  it  full  justice.  As 
some  one  has  happily  said,  "  The  Reformation  was 
a  revolt  against  finality,  and  it  would  be  strange  if 
finality  were  to  be  its  result." 

Protestantism  is  the  human  answer  to  the  divine 
call  to  "  prove  all  things."  It  is  the  duty  of  the  Protes- 
tant reverently  but  fearlessly  to  test  all  things,  espe- 
cially the  things  which  concern  his  most  holy  faith. 
The  things  which  cannot  stand  this  test,  it  is  better 
that  he  should  lose ;  they  are  but  cumberers  of  his 
ground.  And  the  things  which  have  stood  it  trium- 
phantly, he  will  love  and  trust  with  the  profounder 
confidence.  He  must  not  have  the  lie  in  his  soul,  as 
Plato  would  say  ;  in  whatever  things  he  is  deceived, 
he  must  not  allow  himself  to  be  deceived  there.  The 

1  Cf.  Harnack:  "What  Luther  did  was  not  to  create  for  us  a 
finished  religious  system  —  systems  come  and  go  —  but  to  set  before 
us  a  perennial  task,  viz.,  on  the  basis  of  the  gospel  to  be  ever  reform- 
ing anew  and  ever  protesting  courageously  against  indifference  and 
ex  cathedra  utterances"  ("Martin  Luther  in  seiner  Bedeutung  fiir 
die  Geschichte  der  Wissenschaft  und  der  Bildung,"  p.  26). 


176     OLD    TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

true  Protestant  will  be  the  last  man  to  fear  investiga- 
tion. If  it  be  real  investigation,  earnest,  thorough, 
and  brave,  he  will  welcome  it  as  an  ally  of  the  truth. 
He  knows  that  the  truth  —  and  that  alone  —  will 
make  him  free.  Doubtless  intellect  alone  will  not 
settle  the  great  problems  of  faith.  The  mind  of  man 
will  not  by  merely  intellectual  appliances  enter  into 
the  mind  of  the  Spirit  which  throbs  through  Scrip- 
ture. The  Reformers  kept  this  truth  nobly  in  the 
forefront.  Luther,  e.  #.,  insists  that  besides  thorough 
linguistic  knowledge,  the  help  of  the  holy  Spirit  is 
necessary,  besides  fear,  humility,  and  devout  prayer.1 
The  Reformation  was  a  moral  even  more  than  an  in- 
tellectual protest.  But  the  presence  of  these  indis- 
pensable spiritual  qualities,  though  they  will  lead  a  man 
into  as  much  of  the  truth  as  is  necessary  for  his  sal- 
vation, will  not,  by  themselves,  put  him  in  possession  of 
all  that  is  contained  in  the  Scriptures.  To  attain  that 
even  approximately,  he  needs  helps  of  many  kinds, 
helps  which  are  happily  multiplying  abundantly  in 
our  day ;  but  more  even  than  those  he  needs  the  love 
of  truth,  and  the  desire  to  follow  her  freely  and  gladly 
wherever  she  will  take  him.  To  resent  or  circum- 
scribe the  inquiry  of  one  who  brings  to  his  task  the 
spiritual  qualifications  to  which  we  have  alluded,  is  to 
deny  the  first  principles  of  Protestantism.2  It  fur- 

1  For  a  fine  summary  of  the  methods  and  spirit  of  the  Reformers, 
see  Diestel,  "  Geschichte  des  Alten  Testamentes  in  der  christlichen 
Kirche,"  pp.  230  ff . 

2  "  It  should  be  sufficient  for  us  to  hold  fast  tenaciously  —  aggres- 
sively if  occasion  requires — to  the  root  principle  of  the  Reformation, 
that  reason  in  man  is  the  candle  of  the  Lord,  and  that  by  reason  we 
are  to  prove  all  things  and  to  hold  fast  to  that  which  after  proof  is 


ESSENCE    OF    PROTESTANTISM     177 

ther  creates  in  the  minds  of  men  who  stand  outside 
the  church  the  injurious  and  unfortunate  suspicion 
that  she  cannot  afford  to  risk  an  unfettered  investi- 
gation of  the  truth  on  which  she  stands  ;  and  it  raises 
for  them  the  question  why  liberty  is  granted  for  the 
investigation  of  every  kind  of  truth,  but  the  one  on 
which  the  church  claims  that  practically  everything  de- 
pends, both  for  this  world  and  that  which  is  to  come. 
Fortunately  the  churches  as  a  whole,  not  even  alto- 
gether excepting  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  are 
practically  conceding  to  their  scholars  the  right  of 
investigation.  There  is  hardly  any  living  church  in 
any  part  of  the  world,  which  has  not  made  more  or 
less  influential  contributions  of  a  distinctly  Protestant 
kind,  to  the  literature  of  Biblical  discussion  ;  and  by 
that  we  do  not  mean  a  contribution  to  the  support  of 
Protestant  doctrine,  but  one  animated  by  the  Protes- 
tant spirit.  There  are  men  in  every  church  gladly 
conscious  of  standing  in  the  liberty  wherewith  Christ 
hath  made  them  free,  and  humbly  yet  fearlessly  pros- 
ecuting the  study  of  His  truth.  But  though  the 
churches  tolerate,  and  in  a  sense  encourage  investiga- 
tion, there  are  influences  at  work  tending  to  circum- 
scribe its  limits,  to  dictate  how  far  it  shall  go  and 
where  it  shall  stop.  These  influences  are  very  power- 
ful. They  represent  a  great  deal  of  the  best,  the 
noblest,  the  most  devout  life  of  the  church.  They 
may  seem  to  make  for  Protestant  doctrine.  But  they 
are  not  themselves  Protestant  influences.  "  We  are 

found  good.  .  .  .  '  Where  are  we  to  stop  ?  '  is  a  question  which  none 
but  a  man  void  of  living  faith  would  ask."  W.  F.  Cobb,  "  Theology 
Old  and  New,"  pp.  29,  30. 

12 


178     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

all  aware  now,"  says  Harnack,  "  that  to  dictate  to 
knowledge  the  result  at  which  it  is  to  arrive  is  to 
make  knowledge  impossible." 1  Investigation  is  at  an 
end,  if  the  result  is  already  a  foregone  conclusion. 
The  very  word  means  following  upon  the  tracks  of 
something ;  you  cannot  go  both  where  the  tracks  lead 
and  somewhere  else.  You  cannot  give  a  man  the 
right  to  investigate  and  at  the  same  time  bind  him,  in 
advance,  to  one  particular  conclusion.  The  right  you 
give  him  is  in  that  case,  a  delusion :  you  give  with  the 
one  hand  what  you  take  away  with  the  other.  There 
is  no  law  to  prevent  your  doing  so  ;  but  you  cannot  do 
so  and  consistently  call  yourself  a  Protestant.  In 
opposition  to  centuries  of  tradition,  the  Reformers 
faced  the  facts  of  Scripture  for  themselves  with  their 
emancipated  reason,  and  under  the  good  spirit  of 
God,  reached  their  own  conclusions.  They  did  not 
all  agree  among  themselves.  They  differed  on  some 
of  the  most  vital  points.  Luther — giant  as  he  was 
alike  in  intellect  and  faith  —  seems  to  many  to  have 
imperilled  the  unity  of  the  great  work  which  Prov- 
idence had  enabled  him  to  do,  through  his  misinter- 
pretation of  a  metaphor.  But  they  were  all  alike 
Protestants.  Their  differences  among  themselves 
were  as  nothing  to  the  great  gulf  which  separated 
them  from  the  church  against  whose  abuses  they 
had  protested.  Custom  was  lord  of  the  one ;  reason 
and  conscience  were  lords  of  the  other. 

We  are  not  forgetting  the  part  that  Scripture 
played  in  all  this ;  how  it  was  the  spirit  that  moved 
in  it  that  stirred  the  Reformers  to  attack  the  giant 

1  "  Thoughts  on  Protestantism"  (English  Translation)  p.  24. 


ESSENCE   OF    PROTESTANTISM     179 

system  which  had  now  become  but  a  hollow  and 
immoral  caricature  of  the  New  Testament  Church. 
The  Protestant  appeal  was  an  appeal  to  the  Scripture. 
But  had  that  been  all,  it  could  have  been  answered, 
because  the  Catholics  appealed  to  Scripture  too.  The 
Protestant  appeal  however,  was  unanswerable,  because 
it  was  an  appeal  to  what,  for  want  of  a  better  word, 
we  may  call  the  reasonable  interpretation  of  Scrip- 
ture. Centuries  of  often  clever,  sometimes  tortuous, 
but  almost  always  irrelevant  allegorizing  had  ob- 
scured the  original  meaning  of  the  Bible.  It  had 
become  a  dark  and  impossible  book,  for  the  interpre- 
tation of  which  the  layman  was  entirely  dependent 
upon  the  decisions  of  the  Church.  Luther1  denied 
that  it  was  a  dark  book.  "  The  Scripture  is  for  all, 
and  is  clear  enough  —  as  much  as  is  necessary  for 
salvation  —  though  obscure  enough  for  souls  which 
wish  to  know  and  investigate  more."  Speaking  very 
broadly,  the  meaning  of  Scripture  was  on  the  face  of 
it ;  a  passage  which  was  obscure  might  be  illumined 
by  a  clearer  passage  elsewhere.  That  a  book  meant 
what  it  said ;  that  reason  is  not  to  be  violated  in  an 
attempt  to  believe  that  it  means  something  else,  some 
unintelligible  thing,  which  will  need  special  interpre- 
tation :  a  simple  thing  this  principle  seems  to  us,  and 
yet  it  is  one  of  the  greatest  acquisitions  in  human 
history.  It  broke  the  force  of  ecclesiastical  systems 
that  were  hoary  with  age.  It  created  new  worlds  of 

1  Luther  in  the  main  repudiated  the  allegorical  method.  At  best, 
he  holds,  it  has  only  the  value  of  ornament.  It  never  carries  convic- 
tion unless  when  supported  by  Scripture  (e.  g.  Gal.  iv.  22, 1  Pet.  iii.  21 ). 
He  severely  criticises  the  allegorical  methods  of  Origen,  and  others  of 
the  fathers.  Cf .  Eger,  "  Luther's  Auslegung  des  A.  T.,"  pp.  24,  25. 


i8o     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

life  and  thought.     It  inspires  all  the  noblest  thought 
and  enterprise  of  modern  civilization. 

The  appeal  of  the  Reformers  was  to  Scripture  — 
a  Scripture,  however,  which  neither  needed  nor  would 
tolerate  for  its  interpretation  the  trammels  of  tradi- 
tion or  councils  or  Popes ;  in  other  words,  to  a  rea- 
sonable interpretation  of  Scripture.  In  this  sense 
the  Reformers  were  rationalists.  Doubtless  they  de- 
nounced reason,  and  proclaimed  their  submission  to 
Scripture;  but  the  different  interpretations  which 
were  presently  put  upon  facts  and  institutions  of  the 
most  commanding  importance,  are  enough  to  show 
that  Scripture  is  not  simply  an  objective  thing,  before 
whose  word  one  can  humbly  bow,  but  that  the  mind, 
no  less  than  the  heart,  has  to  go  forth  to  meet  it ;  and 
the  interpretations  will  vary  as  the  minds  do.  In 
other  words,  it  was  impossible,  even  had  it  been  de- 
sirable, to  shut  reason  out.  The  two  aspects  of  Prot- 
estantism, which  are  ultimately  only  one  —  the  appeal 
to  Scripture  and  the  appeal  to  reason  —  find  admi- 
rably concentrated  illustration  in  a  moment,  which 
perhaps  more  perfectly  than  any  other  sums  up  the 
spirit  of  the  Reformation,  just  as  the  pathos  of  it  is 
summed  up  in  the  fruitless  discussion  over  Hoc  est 
corpus  meum  in  the  Schloss  of  Marburg.  It  is  the 
historic  moment  when  Luther  replies  in  the  "  Diet  of 
Worms "  to  Eck's  demand  for  a  straightforward 
answer  to  his  question  whether  he  would  retract  or  no. 
"  I  can  retract  nothing,"  said  the  monk,  "  unless  I  be 
convinced  either  from  Scripture  or  by  clear  argument"  1 

1  Cf.  Froude's  second  lecture  on   "The  Times  of  Erasmus  and 
Luther."    "  lu  those  words  lay  the  whole  meaning  of  the  Beforma- 


ESSENCE   OF   PROTESTANTISM     181 

Here,  in  one  of  the  most  tremendous  moments  in 
history,  Luther  deliberately  co-ordinated  reason  with 
Scripture.1  We  say  "  deliberately  "  ;  for  the  great 
words  have  all  the  ring  of  a  solemn  confession.  In 
later  years  and  with  growing  bitterness  he  spoke,  it  is 
true,  with  contempt  of  reason,  in  language  of  almost 
incredible  coarseness  and  vehemence.  No  doubt 
Luther  had  grave,  not  to  say  insoluble  problems  to 
face,  such  as  those  which  gathered  round  the  Eucha- 
rist ;  and  the  struggle  sometimes  provoked  him  to  an 
extravagant  depreciation  of  reason.  The  very  inten- 
sity of  his  difficulty  is  due  to  the  fact  that  he  had  not 
broken,  and  indeed  could  not  break,  completely  with 
the  past.  But  there  are  times  when  Luther  treated 
with  extreme  boldness  the  Scripture  to  whose  word  at 
other  times  he  professed  to  bow ;  and  we  see  the  man 
as  truly  at  the  one  time  as  at  the  other.  He  repre- 
sents in  his  own  person  the  joint  claims  of  reason  and 
of  Scripture. 

How  bold  he  was  —  how  rational,  shall  we  say  ?  — 
in  his  criticism  of  the  worth  of  the  various  books  of 
Scripture,  will  hardly  be  believed  by  one  accustomed 
to  identify  Protestantism  with  the  absolute  infallibility 
of  the  Bible.  Every  one  is  familiar  with  his  opinion 
that  the  Epistle  of  James  is  an  epistle  of  straw.  His 
opinion  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  is  also  depreci- 

tion.  Were  men  to  go  on  forever  saying  that  this  and  that  was  true,  be- 
cause the  Pope  affirmed  it?  Or  were  Pope's  decrees  thenceforward  to  be 
tried  like  the  words  of  other  men  —  by  the  ordinary  laws  of  evidence  ?  " 
1  Doubtless  Luther  would  never  in  formal  discussion  have  co-ordi- 
nated the  two.  All  the  same,  this  great  utterance  is  as  a  window 
through  which  we  see  into  the  man's  real  soul.  On  the  whole  question, 
cf.  Preuss,  "  Die  Entwicklung  des  Schriftprinzips  bei  Luther  bis  zur 
Leipziger  Disputation." 


i82     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

atory.  He  objects  to  the  book  of  Revelation  because 
of  its  visions  and  obscurity.  His  spirit  "  does  not  fit 
into  "  that  book,  because  Christ  is  not  taught  in  it ; 
and  to  witness  to  him  is  the  first  duty  of  an  apostle 
("Ye  shall  be  my  witnesses").  The  book  of  Kings, 
he  admits,  is  more  credible  than  Chronicles.  What 
would  it  matter,  he  asks,  if  Moses  himself  did  not 
write  the  Pentateuch  ?  He  thinks  it  probable  that 
Jeremiah,  Hosea,  Isaiah,  and  Ecclesiastes  received 
their  final  form  at  the  hands  of  later  redactors.  In 
spite  of  the  superscription,  he  designates  the  Solo- 
monic authorship  of  the  127th  Psalm  as  only  probable. 
He  admits  chronological  difficulties  and  contradictions 
in  the  statements  of  historical  fact.  He  concedes  that 
we  do  not  always  hear  God  Himself  speaking  in  the 
Old  Testament.  Esther  might  well  have  been  outside 
the  canon,  and  the  first  book  of  Maccabees  within  it. 

If  this  is  not  criticism,  what  is?  It  is  the  comment 
of  a  powerful,  intrepid,  and  original  mind,  upon  the 
contents  of  the  Biblical  books  ;  and,  at  first  sight,  it 
would  seem  to  be  an  arbitrary  comment.  Perhaps,  at 
bottom,  it  is  arbitrary,  its  criterion  really  being  that 
of  an  individual  mens  sana.  But  the  norm  which  he 
acknowledges  as  determinative  of  his  decisions  is 
this  :  "  I  abide  by  the  books  which  give  me  Christ  clear 
and  pure."  That  accounts  at  once  for  his  eulogy  of 
St.  John  and  St.  Paul,  and  for  his  depreciation  of  St. 
James.  Obviously  this  principle  cannot  be  so  fruitful 
in  its  application  to  the  Old  Testament;  but  here, 
too,  it  has  its  place.  The  exceptional  value  of  the 
Psalms,  he  tells  us,  lies  in  this,  that  they  speak  so 
clearly  of  the  kingdom,  death,  resurrection,  and 


ESSENCE    OF   PROTESTANTISM     183 

ascension  of  Christ.  Whatever  may  be  said  of  the 
adequacy  of  Luther's  criterion  1  —  and  it  certainly  led 
him  to  do  less  than  justice  to  some  of  the  Biblical 
books  —  we  cannot  close  our  eyes  to  the  fact  that  he 
criticised  the  Bible  in  the  spirit  of  a  free,  not  to  say 
a  bold,  man.  His  comments  reveal  the  instinctive 
temper  of  the  Protestant.  No  modern  scholar  claims  a 
liberty  of  discussion  which  he  could  not  justify  by  the 
critical  utterances  and  temper  of  Luther ;  and  there  is 
much  truth  in  the  words  of  Froude,  that  "  the  work  of 
the  Reformation  was  done  when  speculative  opinion 
was  declared  free."  2 

Intellectual  freedom  was  won,  but  at  the  cost  of 
ecclesiastical  unity ;  and  as  it  was  in  the  beginning 
of  Protestantism,  so  it  is  now,  and  so  perhaps  it  ever 
shall  be.  Quot  homines,  tot  sententiae  :  hence  Prot- 
estantism assumes  numerous  denominational  forms. 
The  Bible  is  not  always  so  .clear,  even  in  its  greatest 
statements,  as  to  compel  all  thinking  men  to  one  in- 
terpretation. What  then  ?  Is  liberty  of  thought  not 
likely,  not  certain  to  lead  to  infinite  subjectivity? 
The  individual  has  a  right  to  the  Bible  ;  the  priest 
must  not  stand  in  his  way.  But  is  the  individual's 
interpretation  sure  to  be  right?  and  where  individuals 
differ,  how  shall  we  decide  ?  The  new  principles  of 
interpretation  —  grammatico-historical  as  they  are 
now  called  —  greatly  minimized  the  dangers  of  sub- 
jectivity. The  interpretation  of  a  passage  was  now 
no  longer  determined  by  the  caprice  of  the  reader  or 

1  There  is  a  good  deal  to  be  said  for  Kohler's  assertion  that  for 
church  dogmatic  Luther  substitutes  his  own.     Th.  Ltztg.  1 1th  October, 
1902. 

2  Essay  on  "  The  Condition  and  Prospects  of  Protestantism." 


184     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

the  tradition  of  the  Church,  but  by  the  rigorous  appli- 
cation of  the  laws  of  language  and  grammar,  and  by 
the  consideration  of  its  context  and  purpose.1  Still 
experience  soon  showed  that  this  was  not  enough  to 
fix  the  meaning  of  a  passage  beyond  dispute.  Neither 
is  the  union  of  the  individual  with  Christ  by  itself 
sufficient.  For  while  it  will  enlighten  the  eyes  of  his 
spirit,  and  enable  him  to  behold  all  that  essentially 
concerns  the  welfare  of  his  soul,  it  does  not  guarantee 
him  an  infallible  answer  to  all  the  problems  that  can 
be  raised  on  the  ground  covered  by  the  literature  of 
the  Bible.  The  very  existence  of  various  denomina- 
tions is  sufficient  proof  of  that.  Between  Christ  and 
many  of  the  individual  members  of  every  denomina- 
tion there  exists  a  real  and  intimate  union,  yet  that 
union  coexists  with  widely  different  interpretations 
of  important  texts,  and  even  with  not  inconsiderable 
doctrinal  differences.  The  remedy  for  the  inevitable 
subjectivities  of  an  active  Protestantism  does  not  lie 
there.  Where  then  does  it  lie  ? 


1  Of  course  it  is  not  maintained  that  the  historical  method  was 
practised  with  anything  like  the  same  consistency  as  it  is  to-day.  In 
one  sense  indeed,  it  had  hardly  yet  begun  to  be.  There  was  practically 
no  sense  of  development,  and  without  the  appreciation  of  that  fact,  the 
historical  method  could  not  yield  its  richest  fruits.  New  Testament 
doctrine  was  found  even  in  the  earliest  parts  of  the  Old  Testament. 
Luther  remarks  e.  g.  that  Abimelech  must  have  been  a  Christian  ;  be- 
cause God  says  to  him  "  I  know  that  in  the  integrity  of  thy  heart  thou 
hast  done  this,"  (Gen.  xx.  6)  and  no  one  could  act  in  the  integrity  of 
his  heart  but  a  Christian.  In  many  respects,  Luther's  exegesis  still 
moves  along  the  lines  of  medieval  interpretation.  But  the  spirit  of 
freedom  was  born.  The  new  principles  were  beginning  to  work  ;  the 
new  day  of  interpretation  had  dawned.  For  an  interesting  sketch  of 
the  principles  of  Luther's  interpretation  of  the  Old  Testament,  cf .  Karl 
Eger,  "  Luther's  Auslegung  des  Alteu  Testaments." 


ESSENCE   OF   PROTESTANTISM     185 

The  Reformers  soon  became  painfully  conscious  of 
the  perils  to  which  the  new  principles  of  interpreta- 
tion exposed  the  Church  ;  and  we  find  both  Melanch- 
thon  and  Calvin  suggesting  a  council  of  pious  doctors, 
whose  definitions,  though  they  need  not  be  infallible, 
might  yet  practically  decide  controverted  points.  How- 
ever useful  or  even  necessary  such  a  proposal  may  be 
when  the  Church  is  face  to  face  with  the  practical  exi- 
gencies of  a  given  situation ;  however  wise  and  just  it 
may  be  that  the  individual  should,  in  points  of  contro- 
versy, submit  his  judgment  to  the  collective  piety  and 
wisdom  of  those  who  are  presumably  the  worthiest 
representatives  of  the  Church,  the  proposal  is  yet  an 
undoubted  reversion  in  principle  to  the  methods  of 
the  Romish  Church,  which  Luther,  at  least,  had 
in  the  most  emphatic  way  repudiated.  He  had  re- 
jected the  schoolmen.  He  had  rejected  the  Fathers. 
But  the  unpardonable  sin  was  that  he  had  rejected  the 
councils.  It  was  this  that  dumbfounded  the  Papal 
delegate  at  Worms.  "  It  is  as  clear  as  day,"  Luther 
maintained  in  his  splendid  vindication,  "  that  both 
Pope  and  Councils  have  often  erred."  Eck  was 
thunderstruck.  "  Do  you  really  mean,"  he  asked, 
"  that  a  Council  can  have  erred  ? "  Luther  "  hard- 
ened himself  like  a  hard  rock,"  and  answered  that  it 
was  manifest  that  they  had  erred  often.  "  Yes.  Here 
stand  I.  I  can  do  no  other.  So  help  me  God.  Amen." 
That  was  Luther's  opinion  of  councils  in  the  greatest 
moment  of  his  life ;  and  though  such  a  council  as 
Melanchthon  or  Calvin  would  have  established  would 
probably  have  been  animated  by  a  spirit  different 
from  that  of  the  councils  to  which  Luther  gave  such 


i86     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

short  shrift,  in  principle  it  would  have  been  the  same. 
The  Protestant,  so  long  as  he  remains  a  Protestant, 
cannot  abandon  either  the  right  or  the  duty  of  search- 
ing for  himself.  That  does  not  mean  that  he  will 
search  alone,  indifferent  to  the  researches  and  results 
of  others.  He  is  not  alone  ;  the  Spirit  is  with  him. 
And  he  will  not  forget  that  the  Spirit  which  is  with 
him  is  also  with  the  Church.  He  will  keep  the  open 
ear  for  all  that  the  Spirit  has  to  say.  But  infallibility 
is  no  more  the  attribute  of  a  council  than  it  is  of  a 
man.  An  authority  which  aspires  to  command  the 
reason  and  the  conscience  must  be  able  to  impose 
itself.  If  it  cannot  impose  itself,  it  cannot,  by  Pope 
or  council,  be  superimposed. 

This,  then,  is  the  true  test  of  Protestantism  —  not 
adherence  to  a  creed,  which  necessarily  shares  the 
imperfections  of  all  human  things,  but  possession  of  a 
spirit ;  and  in  the  possession  of  this  spirit  lies  the 
hope  of  the  Protestant  churches  in  every  field  of  their 
activity,  whether  it  be  criticism,  preaching,  evangeliza- 
tion, home  or  foreign  missionary  enterprise.  Indeed, 
in  the  possession  of  this  spirit  lies  the  hope  of  the 
world,  of  its  science  and  art,  of  its  social,  economic, 
and  political  progress.  In  the  mighty  words  of  Luther, 
We  must  be  courageous  and  free,  and  not  allow  the 
spirit  of  liberty  to  be  overawed  by  the  fabricated  words 
of  Popes.  This  is  the  manifesto  of  one  who  was  both 
a  freedman  and  a  free  man.  He  knew  the  bitterness 
of  bondage  before  he  tasted  the  exhilaration  and  re- 
sponsibilities of  liberty.  The  tonic  which  the  churches 
need  to-day  is  the  recovery  of  this  intrepid  faith. 
There  are  always  numerous  and  subtle  influences  at 


ESSENCE    OF    PROTESTANTISM     187 

work  tending  to  transform  the  Protestant  spirit  into 
the  Romish  spirit.1  One  of  the  greatest  of  living 
church  historians  has  recently  called  attention  to  the 
grave  phenomenon  which  he  describes  as  the  pro- 
gressive catholicizing  of  the  Protestant  churches,  a 
phenomenon  which  expresses  itself  not  only  in  the 
increased  emphasis  on  the  liturgical  side  of  worship 
and  on  the  ecclesiastical  machinery  of  the  church,  but 
in  other  and  subtler  ways.  As  it  attempts  to  bind  to 
forms  of  worship,  so  it  attempts  to  bind  to  forms  of 
thought.  It  is  in  both  directions  a  repression  of  the 
liberty  and  spontaneity  which  are  inseparable  from 
true  Protestantism.  Protestantism,  he  assures  us,  is 
not  flourishing  as  the  Protestant  churches  are  ;  and 
he  expresses  the  fear  that  these  churches  may  become 
"  the  mere  double  of  Catholicism."  2  A  church  which 
is  not  willing  to  welcome  new  facts,  if  they  be  facts  ; 
a  church  which  is  not  able  to  respond  to  new  truth, 
from  whatever  quarter  it  comes  ;  a  church  which 
binds  old  forms  of  truth  upon  the  consciences  of  men, 
or  refuses  to  accommodate  the  truth  which  they  em- 
bodied to  contemporary  modes  of  thought :  such  a 
church,  though  she  will  hardly  allure  within  her  walls 
profound  and  reverent  thinkers  who  stand  outside 
her,  may  yet  be  able  to  do  something  for  others,  and 
especially  the  more  emotional  sort  of  men.  But  she 
cannot  call  herself  a  Protestant  church. 

Against  the  spirit  of  true  Protestantism  within  the 
Protestant  churches,  the  subtlest  and  most  attractive 

1  For  some  trenchant  remarks  on  existing  anomalies  in  the  Protes- 
tant attitude  to  authority,  cf.  G.  A.  Coe,  "  The  Religion  of  a  Mature 
Mind,"  pp.  82-94. 

2  Harnack  :  "  Thoughts  on  Protestantism,"  pp.  32-46. 


i88     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

influences  are  arrayed.  The  glamour  of  an  elabo- 
rate ritual,  the  imposing  authority  of  the  past,  are  not 
the  most  helpful  allies  of  intellectual  and  spiritual 
liberty.  There  are  Popes  in  other  churches  than  the 
Church  of  Rome  —  influences  that  make  for  the  re- 
pression of  the  spontaneous  life  of  the  mind  and 
spirit ;  and  Luther's  brave  words  are  as  needful  to-day 
as  ever.  "  We  must  not  allow  the  spirit  of  liberty 
to  be  overawed  by  the  fabricated  words  of  Popes." 
Protestantism  has  its  traditions  and  theological  sys- 
tems just  as  Catholicism  has  ;  and,  in  their  own  way, 
they  can  work  as  fatally.  Every  church,  like  every 
age,  has  to  readjust  itself  to  truth.  The  truth  itself 
does  not  change.  But  the  form  of  it  does  ;  the  age's 
perception  of  it  does.  And  if  the  form  does  not  keep 
pace  with  the  changing  perception,  due  among  other 
things,  to  truer  methods  and  advancing  knowledge, 
then  it  becomes  a  form 

"  Through  which  the  spirit  breathes  no  more." 

The  form  is  stiff,  and  the  spirit  is  gone. 

It  is  at  once  the  necessity  and  the  misfortune  of 
a  great  and  original  age  like  the  Reformation  to 
embody  the  spirit  which  created  it  in  institutions  and 
systems.  The  spirit  craves,  nay,  compels  expression. 
But,  while  the  spirit  is  immortal,  the  body  is  not; 
and  the  pathos  of  church  history  has  just  been  the 
general  inability  to  distinguish  between  the  mortal 
body  and  the  immortal  spirit.  The  spirit  of  the 
Reformation  translated  itself  into  theologies,  which, 
like  all  translations,  did  less  than  justice  to  the 
original.  Those  theologies  hardened  into  scholastic 


ESSENCE   OF    PROTESTANTISM     189 

forms  which  did  less  and  less  justice  to  the  origi- 
nal impulse  of  the  Reformation ;  and  the  intellectual 
salvation  of  the  church  lies  in  continuing  to  work  in 
the  spirit  of  the  original  impulse,  not  of  the  scholas- 
ticism which  it  created.1  Both  for  good  and  for  evil, 
the  conservative  instinct  lies  deep  in  the  natures  of 
men.  In  religion,  this  instinct  has  worked  largely, 
but  by  no  means  exclusively,  for  good.  This  it  was 
that  slew  the  prophets  and  that  nailed  Christ  to  His 
cross ;  but  it  is  this,  too,  which  has  enabled  men  to 
withstand  the  encroachments  of  insidious  innovations, 
and  to  preserve  many  of  the  fundamental  elements  in 
religion  which  might  have  disappeared,  had  the  ears 
been  too  readily  open  to  the  plausible  suggestions  of 
every  new  comer.  But  in  spite  of  the  great  soul  of 
good  at  the  heart  of  it,  it  has  in  many  of  its  phases, 
been  an  obstacle  to  progress.  It  has  kept  men  stand- 
ing, when  they  should  have  been  moving  on.  It  has 
often  made  them  ungenerous  and  unjust  to  other  men 
who  loved  truth  as  they  loved  their  lives.  Men  of 
purely  conservative  instincts  repose  comfortably  in 
traditions  and  beliefs  which  have  existed  long  simply 
because  they  were  never  challenged ;  and  they  angrily 
resent  the  challenge  when  it  comes,  forgetting  that 
they  call  themselves  Protestants,  only  because  they 
are  children  of  fathers  who  were  not  afraid  to  chal- 
lenge all  that  offended  their  divine  instinct  for  truth. 
In  the  Reformation,  we  must  not  forget  the  Renais- 

1  Cf .  Froude's  essay  on  "  Criticism  and  the  Gospel  History  "  :  "  Of 
all  positions  the  most  fatally  suicidal  for  Protestants  to  occupy  is  the 
assumption,  which  it  is  competent  for  Roman  Catholics  to  hold,  but 
not  for  them,  that  beliefs  once  sanctioned  by  the  Church  are  sacred, 
and  that  to  impugn  them  is  not  error,  but  crime." 


1 9o     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

sance.1  It  was  an  epoch  of  advancing  knowledge  as 
well  as  of  courageous  faith.  The  facts  of  classical 
antiquity  revealed  a  new  world  of  profound  fascination 
and  of  throbbing  humanity,  which  put  to  confusion 
the  unrealities  that  the  mediaeval  church  had  only  too 
successfully  imposed  upon  the  spirits  of  men.  The 
Renaissance  was  the  re-discovery  of  man  and  the 
world  :  the  Reformation  was  the  re-discovery  of  God. 
And  that  re-discovery  of  Him  was,  in  part,  the  dis- 
covery of  Him  in  the  life  of  ancient  humanity,  or,  in 
more  definite  language,  in  the  historical  movements 
and  experiences  reflected  in  the  Bible.  It  was  surely 
part  of  the  gracious  Providence  of  God  that  the  recov- 
ery of  the  idea  of  humanity  should  be  accompanied  by 
the  perception  that  humanity  was  the  theatre  of  the 
divine  activity,  that  God  was  not  a  being  apart,  but 
one  who  communes  with  men  and  governs  history. 
The  Bible  had  been  a  book  of  the  doctrines  of  salva- 
tion :  it  now  became  the  record  of  the  history  of 
salvation.  The  divine  life  and  love  were  seen  in 
their  living  relations  to  humanity ;  and  that  is  one 
of  the  truths  which  it  is  the  function  of  the  Protestant 
churches  to  keep  before  themselves  and  the  world. 
Wherever  it  has  been  forgotten,  its  neglect  has  been 
fearfully  avenged.  Deism  tore  the  heart  out  of  re- 
ligion, by  relegating  God  to  a  distant  throne.  The 
issue  was  desolation  and  death.  The  nineteenth  cen- 


1  Harnack  strikingly  shows,  however,  that  the  Renaissance,  im- 
portant as  it  was,  would  never  by  itself  and  without  the  Reformation 
have  created  the  modern  world,  as  it  was  essentially  a  reversion  to 
the  past,  "a  resuscitation  of  antiquity"  ("Martin  Luther  in  seiner 
JBedeutung,  etc.,"  pp.  10,  11,  23). 


ESSENCE   OF    PROTESTANTISM     191 

tury  has  seen  the  idea  of  humanity,  which  received 
so  lurid  an  emphasis  in  the  horrors  of  the  French 
Revolution,  again  interpenetrated  by  a  sense  of  divinity 
—  partly  in  consequence  of  a  dominant  philosophy 
which  has  profoundly  affected  modern  thought,  and 
partly  through  the  revived  historical  study  of  the  Bible. 
And  now,  not  merely  because  humanity  is  interesting, 
but  because  within  it  the  operations  of  divine  law  are 
manifest,  and  upon  the  field  of  its  history  the  divine 
purpose  is  worked  out,  the  theological  scholar  no  less 
than  the  historian  may  say,  Humani  nihil  a  me  alienum 
puto. 

It  is  quite  impossible  that  the  spirit  of  the  Reforma- 
tion should  ever  be  wholly  lost.  Whether  there  are 
signs,  as  Harnack  supposes,  that  it  is  vanishing  from 
the  Protestant  churches  or  not,  of  one  thing  we  may 
be  quite  sure  —  that  it  is  not  vanishing  from  the  world. 
It  is  inspiring  investigation  in  every  department  of 
science  to-day.  A  Galileo  is  free  to-day  to  propound 
any  theory  which  he  can  commend  to  the  reason  of 
those  who  will  listen  to  him.  There  is  very  much 
Biblical  study,  too,  which  is  essentially  Protestant  in 
spirit.  The  Biblical  criticism  of  to-day,  when  it  is 
real  criticism,  and  does  not  assume  the  thing  to  be 
proved,  is  the  direct  outcome  of  the  Reformation  spirit, 
working  with  the  more  scientific  methods,  and  the 
ever-enlarging  material  of  our  own  age.  The  reverent 
critics  are  the  lineal  descendants  of  the  Reformers. 
Criticism  is  not  an  isolated  phenomenon  which  can  be 
located  and  controlled  by  those  who  fear  it.  It  is  part 
of  a  universal  movement,  affecting  every  department 
of  human  thought  —  a  movement  which  will  continue 


192     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

so  long  as  the  world  is  full  of  problems  and  mystery, 
and  men  have  minds  to  think. 

The  Reformation  taught  the  world  fearlessly  to  in- 
vestigate all  current  beliefs,  and  to  welcome  new  truths 
as  a  source  of  strength.  Hard  heads  need  sound 
knocks,  said  Luther;  and  sound  enough  were  the 
knocks  which  he  and  his  brother  reformers  dealt  at 
some  of  the  traditions  and  practices  which  could  not 
substantiate  their  claims  on  any  better  ground  than 
that  of  antiquity.  The  Reformation  gave  an  enormous 
impulse  to  the  respect  for  facts,  and  to  the  earnestness 
of  the  search  for  them.  That  was  an  age  of  discovery. 
Brave  and  adventurous  spirits  worked  hard  and  trav- 
elled far.  They  crossed  oceans.  They  touched 
undreamt-of  continents.  They  explored  antiquity. 
They  recreated  theology.  They  stood  upon  the  thresh- 
old of  scientific  discovery.  The  old  world  was  passing. 
New  worlds  of  absorbing  interest  were  breaking  upon 
their  vision.  All  the  facts  that  they  could  offer  were 
welcome  ;  but  everything  which  claimed  to  be  believed 
must  be  able  to  bear  the  light.  If  it  could  not  stand 
to  be  criticised,  it  could  not  stand  to  be  trusted.  So 
the  quest  went  on  from  year  to  year,  suffering  contin- 
ual checks,  but  making  continual  progress.  Every 
traditional  opinion  was  put  on  its  defence ;  and  the 
Bible  could  claim  no  exemption.  Even  Luther,  as  we 
saw,  had  boldly  challenged  traditional  belief  as  to  the 
authorship  and  value  of  certain  of  its  books ;  and  the 
challenge  was  bound  to  be  repeated,  wherever  men 
felt  the  impulse  of  the  Reformation. 

No  mistake  could  be  profounder  than  to  suppose 
that  higher  criticism,  which  is  only  another  name  for 


ESSENCE    OF    PROTESTANTISM     193 

literary  or  historical  criticism,  is  a  thing  of  yesterday. 
In  its  spirit,  it  is  as  old  as  Luther,  and  older  ; l  but, 
even  in  something  like  its  present  form,  it  is  a  century 
and  a  half  old.  It  is  exactly  a  hundred  and  fifty 
years  ago  since  what  may  be  called  the  documentary 
theory  was  devised  to  meet  some  of  the  more  notorious 
difficulties  of  the  book  of  Genesis  ;  and  that  theory, 
doubtless  with  important  supplements  and  modifica- 
tions, holds  the  field  to-day,  and  is  accepted  by  many 
who  count  themselves  the  opponents  of  criticism.  It 
is  not  without  interest  that  Astruc,  who  first  started 
the  theory,  was  a  Roman  Catholic.2  The  impulse 
given  to  intellectual  liberty  by  the  Reformation  had 
been  powerful  enough  to  compel  at  least  a  spasmodic 
response  from  the  more  original  minds  even  in  the 
Church  of  Rome.  Just  as  there  are  men  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  spirit  in  Protestant  communions,  so  there  are 
men  of  Protestant  temper  in  the  Romish  Church, 
such  as  Astruc  in  the  eighteenth  century,  and  Loisy 
to-day,  though  the  incubus  of  the  Church  is  too  heavy 
to  allow  their  thinking  to  attain  clear  consistency.  It 
is  not  possible  to  maintain  that  Astruc's  theory  was 
devised  in  the  interests  of  unbelief.  The  title  of  his 
book  3  shows  that,  though  he  believed  that  there  were 
documents  lying  behind  Genesis,  he  also  believed  that 
the  book  had  received  its  present  form  at  the  hands 

1  See  the  references  to  the  interpretation  of  Theodore  of  Mopsues- 
tia  (350-429  A.  D.)  on  p.  104. 

*  Cf.  Julia  Wedgwood,  —  "  The  Message  of  Israel,"  p.  53.  "Bib- 
lical criticism  was  born  under  the  shadow  of  a  liberal  Romanism ;  it 
has  been  matured  in  the  home  of  Protestantism." 

3  Conjectures  sur  les  Memoires  originaux  dont  il  paroit  que  Moyse 
s'est  servi  pour  composer  le  livre  de  la  Ge'nese. 

13 


i94     OLD    TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

of  Moses.  The  problems  raised  by  the  phenomena  of 
Genesis  press  themselves  upon  the  minds  of  all  who 
read  with  the  desire  to  understand. 

This  is  only  one  of  numberless  problems  created 
by  the  facts  of  Biblical  literature ;  it  is  the  genius  of 
Protestantism  to  do  what  it  can  to  find  an  answer  for 
them.  It  may  not  always  succeed,  but  it  is  bound  to 
try ;  and  in  the  attempt  it  will  at  least  learn  the  limi- 
tations within  which  it  has  to  work.  Biblical  criti- 
cism does  not  stand  alone.  It  is  part  of  the  intellectual 
life  of  the  age  ;  and  the  one  can  no  more  stop  than  the 
other.  Wherever  there  is  a  problem,  there  is  some- 
thing upon  which  the  Protestant  mind  must  work  - 
whether  that  problem  be  in  the  heavens  above,  or  on 
the  earth  beneath,  or  in  the  Scriptures  by  which  men 
live.  All  scientific  investigation  is  impelled  by  the 
desire  to  know,  and  the  investigation  of  the  Bible  is 
governed  by  this  impulse  among  others.  For  others 
there  assuredly  are:  the  Bible  will  only  utter  its 
deepest  secret  to  those  who  fear  the  Lord,  and  who 
desire,  through  it,  to  enter  into  fellowship  with  Him. 
The  impulse  to  the  highest  study  of  the  Bible  will  be 
the  desire  to  have  true  religion  increased  within  us. 
But  besides  this  impulse,  the  science  of  Biblical  study 
shares  with  all  other  sciences  the  desire  to  know  and 
understand,  by  patient  investigation  of  all  the  avail- 
able facts.  Biblical  criticism  is  but  one  phase  of  that 
great  intellectual  movement,  essentially  Protestant  in 
origin  and  impulse,  in  which  every  thinking  man, 
and,  above  all,  every  scientific  student,  must  humbly 
play  his  part.  Truth  has  many  forms ;  one  man 
studies  it  under  one  aspect,  another  under  another. 


ESSENCE   OF    PROTESTANTISM     195 

But  there  is  one  God  over  all,  and  all  truth  is  ulti- 
mately related  to  Him.  The  search  for  it  must  be 
undertaken  in  the  reverent,  yet  fearless  spirit  of  Him 
who  was  Truth  incarnate ;  and  where  the  spirit  of  the 
Lord  is,  there  is  liberty. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
CRITICISM  AND   CHRIST 

No  part  of  the  discussion  needs  to  be  approached 
with  more  reverence  or  with  more  delicate  considera- 
tion of  the  feelings  of  others  than  this.  Any  theory 
which  would  flippantly  set  aside  a  solemn  decision  of 
Christ  on  any  question,  even  were  it  purely  literary  or 
historical,  would  stand  self-condemned.  This,  then, 
in  brief,  is  the  problem :  Has  Christ  anywhere  given 
a  deliberate  decision  on  such  questions  ?  The  ques- 
tion is  not,  Did  He  hold  certain  opinions  on  these 
matters?  but,  Are  these  opinions  which  He  held,  or- 
ganic and  necessary  to  His  spiritual  teaching  ?  Did 
He  lay  them  emphatically  upon  the  consciences  of 
those  whom  He  sought  to  bring  to  God  ?  Were 
they  essential  or  incidental  ? 

Nothing  has  so  distressed  and  disappointed  the  op- 
ponents of  the  critical  view  of  the  Old  Testament  as 
its  apparent  disregard  of  the  testimony  of  Christ.  To 
them  it  seems  that  Christ  has  plainly  and  deliberately 
endorsed  their  own  views  of  the  Old  Testament,  and 
implicitly  condemned  in  advance  the  views  of  the 
critics.  One  can  have  nothing  but  respect  for  the 
jealousy  with  which  they  safeguard  the  honor  of 
Christ,  and  the  enthusiasm  with  which  they  combat 
belittling  views  of  His  person.  But  it  must  be  noted, 


CRITICISM   AND   CHRIST       197 

on  the  other  side,  that  most  of  the  critics  are  animated 
by  precisely  the  same  motives.  No  doubt  it  will  not 
seem  so  to  their  opponents.  But  one  has  only  to  read 
such  a  statement  of  the  case  for  criticism  as  is  pre- 
sented by  Professor  Meinhold's  "  Jesus  and  the  Old 
Testament "  to  see  that  this  is  the  case.  The  critics 
are  contending  for  what  they  hold  to  be  a  worthier 
conception  of  Christ's  person  than  that  which  the 
traditional  theory  offers  them.  They  do  not  believe 
that  the  Christ  whose  truth  makes  men  free,  would 
bind  in  advance  the  intellectual  conscience  of  unborn 
generations  and  wrap  up  faith  in  Himself  with  issues 
that  are  wholly  irrelevant  to  the  spiritual  life.  We 
may  assume,  indeed  we  know,  that  many  men  on  both 
sides  love  the  truth,  and  would  scorn  any  solution 
which  would  be  dishonoring  to  Christ. 

Is  the  discussion  of  Old  Testament  problems  fore- 
closed by  statements  in  the  New  Testament,  or  is  it 
not  ?  That  is  the  real  point  at  issue ;  and  the  oppo- 
nents of  criticism  answer  with  no  uncertain  sound. 
Referring  to  a  statement  of  Dr.  McCurdy's1  that 
"there  is  really  no  biblical  tradition  to  the  effect 
that  David  was  a  psalm-writer,  the  titles  to  the 
Psalms  being  unauthentic,"  a  reviewer  remarks,  "  We 
do  not  know  what  he  calls  the  New  Testament,  or 
what  he  would  say  of  Christ  and  the  apostles,  who 
repeatedly  affirmed  that  some  of  the  Psalms  were  writ- 
ten by  David,  and  based  their  argument  upon  the  fact 
of  his  authorship."  2  Again,  we  are  told  by  another 
writer  that  "  the  authority  of  the  Psalter  depends 

1  "  History,  Prophecy,  and  the  Monuments,"  vol.  iii.  p.  52. 
*  "  Bibliotheca  Sacra,"  January,  1902,  p.  204. 


198     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

upon  the  testimony  of  the  New  Testament."1  Now 
the  New  Testament  has  a  very  distinct  function  ;  but 
it  seems  to  be  no  part  of  that  function  to  give  its  read- 
ers information  on  literary  problems  arising  out  of  the 
Old  Testament.  It  nowhere  claims  that  right  for  it- 
self, and  if  any  man  makes  such  a  claim  for  it  he  must 
be  prepared  to  justify  his  claim.  He  must  show  that 
it  was  part  of  the  purpose  of  the  writers  of  the  New 
Testament  to  correct  traditional  views  of  authorship 
and  history,  if  those  views  were  mistaken.  Farther, 
he  must  show  that  they  had  access  to  information 
which  would  enable  them  to  correct  those  views ;  or, 
in  the  absence  of  such  information,  he  must  show  that 
they  were  miraculously  led  to  a  knowledge  of  such 
matters.  Till  these  claims  can  be  substantiated,  the 
New  Testament  endorsement  of  a  tradition,  say,  as 
to  the  Mosaic  authorship  of  the  law,  or  the  Davidic 
authorship  of  the  Psalms,  can  have  no  more  value 
than  the  tradition  itself ;  and  that  must  be  independ- 
ently investigated.  There  need  be  no  reason  for 
alarm  at  such  a  conclusion,  unless  it  can  be  shown 
that  these  questions  are  integrally  bound  up  with  the 
spiritual  function  of  Scripture. 

What,  then,  is  that  function  ?  It  is  defined  in  the 
famous  text,  2  Tim.  iii.  16, 17. 

Every  Scripture  inspired  of  God  is  also  profitable  for 
teaching,  for  reproof,  for  correction,  for  instruction  which 

1  Dr.  T.  W.  Chambers  in  Munhall's  "Anti-Higher  Criticism," 
p.  144.  Paley,  however,  in  his  "  Evidences,"  more  than  a  hundred  years 
ago,  frankly  admitted  that  "  a  reference  in  the  New  Testament  to  a 
passage  in  the  Old  does  not  so  fix  its  authority  as  to  exclude  all  inquiry 
into  its  credibility,  or  into  the  separate  reasons  upon  which  that  credi- 
bility is  founded." 


CRITICISM   AND   CHRIST        199 

is  in  righteousness ;  that  the  man  of  God  may  be  com- 
plete, furnished  completely  unto  every  good  work. 

Now  whatever  be  the  translation  of  the  much-dis- 
puted sixteenth  verse,  it  ought  never  to  have  been  used 
to  silence  the  discussion  of  literary  problems.  If  we 
translate  with  the  Authorized  Version,  All  Scripture 
is  given  by  inspiration  of  God,  etc.,  we  shall  have  in 
the  first  place  to  determine  the  original  compass  of 
Scripture ;  and  that  is  a  notoriously  hard  question. 
For  eight  or  nine  passages,  which  are  not  found  in  the 
Old  Testament,  are  quoted  in  the  New — though  not 
by  our  Lord  —  apparently  as  Scripture ;  and  again, 
though  Christ  does  not  quote  the  Apocrypha,  there 
are  also  books  in  the  Old  Testament  itself  which  He 
does  not  quote,  e.g.  Esther,  the  Song,  Ecclesiastes. 
Thus,  to  begin  with,  the  Scripture  of  which  inspiration 
is  predicated,  though  no  doubt  practically  synonymous 
with  our  Old  Testament,  is  yet  not  specifically  de- 
fined. The  other  translation  of  the  passage  would  at 
least  seem  to  leave  the  question  of  the  limits  of  Scrip- 
ture still  more  open.  But  on  either  view,  the  verse 
contains  valuable  suggestions  as  to  the  nature  of  In- 
spiration. Every  inspired  Scripture  is  useful  within 
the  sphere  specified.  Surely  no  one  doubts  that.  But 
that  is  all  that  the  verse  directly  says.  It  has  nothing 
to  say  of  inerrancy,  nothing  of  infallibility.  If  any- 
thing more  is  to  be  read  into  the  word  "inspired," 
that  must  be  discovered  by  an  inductive  examination 
of  Scripture  itself.  The  ethical  and  religious  function 
of  Scripture  is  pointedly  indicated  in  the  following 
verse,  which  is  too  often  dissociated  from  verse  16 : 


OF  TH£ 

f   UNIVERSITY  \ 


aoo     OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

That  the  man  of  God  may  le  complete,  furnished  com- 
pletely unto  every  good  work.  If  Scripture  is  found  to 
be  useful  for  the  purposes  indicated,  if  it  can  make 
the  man  of  God  complete,  and  furnish  him  completely 
unto  every  good  work,  then  it  has  fulfilled  its  func- 
tion, and  that  irrespective  of  the  accuracy  or  inac- 
curacy of  traditional  views  of  authorship  which  have 
come  in  the  course  of  the  centuries  to  be  associated 
with  it.  We  must  distinguish  between  the  things 
that  affect  faith  and  life,  and  other  things  which, 
however  interesting  and  important  of  themselves, 
are  for  this  purpose  irrelevant  —  powerless  to  fur- 
nish us  unto  good  works. 

This  great  text  of  St.  Paul,  then,  does  not  even 
pretend  to  block  the  way  of  a  scientific  investigation 
of  the  problems  raised  by  the  Old  Testament.  The 
literary  problems  of  the  Old  Testament  must  be  dis- 
cussed on  the  ground  of  the  Old  Testament.  To  look 
for  the  solution  of  such  problems  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment is  to  mistake  altogether  its  spirit  and  purpose. 
How  much  we  should  be  perplexed  by  starting  from 
the  New  Testament  in  our  investigation  of  the  Old 
we  shall  readily  see  if  we  consider  the  inaccuracy  of 
some  of  the  allusions  to  the  Old  Testament  in  the 
New.  The  number  of  those  who  perished,  for  ex- 
ample, as  the  result  of  the  idolatrous  connection  of 
Israel  with  Moab  is  given  in  Num.  xxv.  9  as  twenty- 
four  thousand :  St.  Paul  puts  it  at  twenty-three  thou- 
sand (1  Cor.  x.  8).  The  priest  who  gave  David  the 
consecrated  bread  bears  in  the  Old  Testament  the 
name  of  Ahimelech  (1  Sam.  xxi.  1)  ;  in  the  New  he  is 
called  Abiathar  (Mark  ii.  26).  In  the  Old  Testament, 


CRITICISM    AND    CHRIST       201 

the  famine  which  fell  upon  Israel  during  the  reign  of 
Ahab  lasted  three  years  (1  Kings  xviii.  1)  ;  in  the 
New  Testament,  three  years  and  a  half  (Luke  iv.  25 ; 
James  v.  17).  Zechariah,  the  son  of  Jehoiada  (2  Chr. 
xxiv.  20),  is  spoken  of  as  the  son  of  Barachiah  (Matt, 
xxiii.  35),  by  a  not  unnatural  confusion  1  with  the  more 
famous  prophet  (Zech.  i.  1).  Doubtless  these  and  simi- 
lar discrepancies  which  might  be  mentioned  are  exceed- 
ingly trivial,  and,  to  any  one  who  realizes  that  the 
Bible  is  a  spiritual  revelation  intended  to  strengthen 
and  equip  the  man  of  God,  not  in  the  least  disconcert- 
ing ;  but  it  is  necessary  to  call  attention  to  such 
things  when  it  is  claimed  that  the  New  Testament 
utterances  concerning  the  Old  Testament  are  to  be 
taken  as  in  all  respects  authoritative. 

A  much  more  delicate  question  than  that  involved 
in  the  allusions  to  the  Old  Testament  is  the  New 
Testament  interpretation  of  the  Old.  Let  us  glance 
at  two  of  the  more  striking  instances.  From  the  use 
of  the  singular  word  "  seed "  instead  of  the  plural 
"  seeds  "  in  the  promise  made  to  Abraham  "  and  to 
his  seed,"  St.  Paul,  in  his  letter  to  the  Galatians 
(iii.  16),  argues  that  the  original  word  contemplated 
an  individual,  and  that  individual  is  Christ.  There 
can  be  no  manner  of  question  about  the  sincerity  of 
this  logic  of  St.  Paul,  or  even  about  the  substantial 
accuracy  of  his  conclusion ;  but,  unless  we  waive  all 
claim  to  examine  Biblical  words  by  the  ordinary  laws 
of  language,  the  process  by  which  Paul  reaches  this 
conclusion  must  fail  to  convince  an  open  Western 

1  The  mistake  may  be  that  of  the  evangelist  or  of  a  copyist ;  but  it 
is  enough  to  show  that  our  present  text  of  the  New  Testament  is  not 
always  in  harmony  with  the  Old  Testament,  even  in  matters  of  fact. 


OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

mind  to-day.  The  word  "seed,"  in  English,  in 
Hebrew,  or  in  Greek,  is  a  collective  word ;  and  while 
it  may  be,  and  occasionally  —  though  seldom  —  is, 
applied  to  an  individual,  it  is  never  inevitably  so 
applied,  and  no  argument  can  be  built  upon  it.  For 
suppose  for  a  moment  that  the  promise  contemplated, 
as  most  scholars  would  claim  that  it  originally  did,  not 
one  individual,  but  many1  —  that  it  is  for  Abraham 
and  his  posterity  —  are  we  to  suppose  that  in  that 
case  the  plural  word  "  seeds  "  would  have  been  used  ? 
That  would  be  as  awkward  and  impossible  in  Hebrew 
or  Greek  as  it  is  in  English.  It  is  not  denied  that 
the  promise  receives  its  ideal  or  perfect  fulfilment  in 
Christ ;  that  is  a  fact  which  does  not  depend  on  any 
dialectic  process.  What  is  denied  is  that  the  use  of 
the  singular  word  necessitates  the  individual  interpre- 
tation. There  was  a  time  when  this  could  be  accepted 
as  an  argument.  It  no  doubt  carried  weight  with 
those  for  whom  Paul  intended  it.  He  was  too 
shrewd  a  man,  too  keen-sighted  and  intense  in  his 
zeal  for  converts,  to  offer  them  irrelevant  or  vulnerable 
logic.  But  we  cannot  to-day,  with  our  different  type 
of  mind,  feel  the  cogency  of  the  argument ;  we  cannot 
admit  that  it  is  the  natural  and  inevitable  interpreta- 
tion of  the  passage. 

Or  take  the  well-known  passage  in  which  St.  Paul 
is  arguing  that  the  minister  of  the  gospel  deserves  to 
be  supported  by  those  to  whom  he  ministers.2  He 
supports  the  argument  by  a  quotation  from  the  law : 
It  is  written  in  the  law  of  Moses,  Thou  shalt  not  muzzle 

1  Paul  himself  so  interprets  it  in  Gal.  iii.  29  and  Rom.  ir.  16. 

2  1  Cor.  ix.  7  ff.     Cf.  1  Tim.  v.  18. 


CRITICISM   AND   CHRIST       103 

the  ox  when  he  treadeth  out  the  corn.  The  quotation 
is  an  admirable  illustration  of  the  point  he  is  enforc- 
ing; but  he  goes  on  to  say,  Is  it  for  the  oxen  that  G-od 
careth,  or  saith  He  it  altogether  for  our  sake  ?  Yea, 
for  our  sake  it  was  written.  Paul  rejects,  and  almost 
resents  the  idea,  that  such  legislation  should  mean 
what  it  says.  In  the  interests  of  what  he  regards  as  a 
worthier  conception  of  revelation,  he  allegorizes  and 
thus  dissipates  the  magnificent  and  tender  generosity 
of  the  law  in  its  original  application.  To  his  question, 
"  Is  it  for  the  oxen  that  God  careth  ? "  our  answer 
must  be,  "  Most  assuredly."  The  Deuteronomic  legis- 
lation is  inspired  not  only  by  a  noble  love  for  God,  but 
by  a  no  less  worthy  love  for  man  and  for  the  animals. 
One  of  the  distinctions  of  the  Old  Testament  is  its 
profound  and  beautiful  interest  in  the  animal  creation. 
The  animals  often  appear  in  the  prophetic  visions  of 
the  latter  days ;  and  God  was  willing  to  spare  Nineveh, 
"  that  great  city ;  wherein  are  more  than  sixscore 
thousand  persons  that  cannot  discern  between  their 
right  hand  and  their  left  hand  ;  and  also  much  cattle  " 
(Jonah  iv.  11).  Can  we,  in  the  light  of  all  these  facts, 
conscientiously  say  that  Paul's  interpretation  of  that 
passage  is  normative  for  us?  Is  it  not  rather  in 
the  spirit  of  Philo1  who  interprets  allegorically  the 
law  that  a  garment  taken  in  pledge  must  be  restored 
before  sunset,  because  God  did  not  care  for  such 
things  ?  Unless  we  are  to  abandon  the  principle  that 
the  Bible  means  what  it  says,  there  can  be  only  one 

1  "  De  Somn."  i.  16,  17.  The  garment  signifies  speech.  To  sup- 
pose that  the  law  in  Ex.  xxii.  26  really  referred  to  garments  would  be 
"  to  impart  the  triviality  of  human  affairs  to  the  uncreate  and  immortal 
nature  of  God." 


204     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

natural  interpretation  of  the  law  that  dealt  so  gener- 
ously with  the  oxen ;  and  that  law,  as  it  stands,  is 
sufficiently  divine  to  be  able  to  dispense  with  allegori- 
cal interpretation.1 

The  allegorical  interpretation  is  found  in  other  parts 
of  the  New  Testament,  and  is  expressly  acknowledged 
by  St.  Paul  in  Gal.  iv.  24,  "  Which  things  contain  an 
allegory;  for  these  women  are  two  covenants;"  and 
in  1  Cor.  x.  11  the  incidents  of  the  wilderness  wander- 
ings are  said  to  have  happened  typikos,  typically,  by 
way  of  figure.  The  meat  and  the  drink  which  sus- 
tained them  in  the  desert  are  spiritualized,  and  the 
rock  of  which  they  drank  was  Christ.  It  would  take 
us  too  far  out  of  our  way  to  trace  the  origin  and  pur- 
pose of  allegorical  interpretation,  and  to  show  its  rela- 
tive justification  for  that  day.  It  is  enough  here  to 
say  that,  so  long  as  we  believe  in  the  grammatico- 
historical  principles  of  interpretation  won  for  us  by 
the  Reformation,  though  not  adopted  with  uniform 
consistency  by  the  Reformers,  the  allegorical  method 
can  never  be  ours.  Be  it  said,  however,  once  for  all, 
that  not  one  of  these  points  —  whether  arguments 
which  do  not  now  convince  or  allegory  which  does  not 
now  commend  itself  to  the  historical  sense  —  is  of  vital 
importance  to  the  Christian  faith,  or  impairs  by  one 
jot  the  power  of  Scripture  to  edify  or  reprove,  to  cor- 
rect, instruct,  or  inspire.  If  the  essential  aim  of  Scrip- 

1  Jennings  and  Lowe  ("  The  Psalms,"  vol.  i.  p.  xxvii)  defend  the 
passage  thus:  "All  that  is  meant  is,  that  the  moral  Law  —  which  is 
to  guide  the  Christian  as  well  as  the  Jew  —  prescribes  humanity,  and 
liberal  recognition  of  service,  even  in  the  case  of  brute  beasts,  a  fortiori 
then  in  the  case  of  men."  Doubtless  this  ia  what  is  ultimately  meant, 
but  it  is  not  precisely  what  Paul  says. 


CRITICISM   AND    CHRIST       205 

ture,  as  defined  by  St.  Paul,  be  steadily  kept  in  view, 
all  these  things  will  fall  into  their  proper  place  as 
matters  of  very  subordinate  importance.  It  is  a  grave 
error  to  confound  the  soul  of  a  man's  message  with 
his  particular  presentation  of  it,  or  to  confuse  the 
heavenly  treasure  with  the  earthly  vessel. 

Let  us  now  pass,  however,  from  the  New  Testament 
in  general  to  a  more  particular  study  of  the  attitude 
of  Christ  to  the  Old  Testament.  In  one  who  believed 
that  God  cared  for  every  sheep,  and  for  every  sparrow 
that  falls  to  the  ground,  we  do  not  expect,  and  we  do 
not  find,  any  such  interpretation  of  the  Old  Testament 
as  that  which  St.  Paul  gives  of  the  divine  law  of  kind- 
ness to  animals.  Every  utterance  of  Christ  is  marked 
by  a  sweet  and  convincing  reasonableness.  He  is  the 
Rabbi,  yet  there  was  nothing  Rabbinical  in  Him,  and 
we  reverently  approach  the  consideration  of  His 
words  with  the  assurance  that  He  spoke  with  author- 
ity. With  that  authority  He  partly  confirmed,  partly 
modified,  and  partly  abolished  the  older  covenant. 
He  came  to  fulfil,  and  He  urged  the  people  to  do  all 
that  they  were  bidden  by  those  who  sat  on  Moses' 
seat ;  but  He  also  abrogated  the  law  of  retaliation  and 
rebuked  two  of  His  disciples  for  their  too  ready  imi- 
tation of  an  ancient  prophet.1  The  sovereign  yet 
reverent  freedom  of  His  attitude  to  the  Old  Testa- 
ment lends  a  peculiar  interest  to  His  numerous  direct 
and  indirect  allusions  to  it. 

Some  of  the  references  are  of  a  large  kind,  others 

1  Luke  ix.  55.  The  words  of  the  rebuke,  Ye  know  not  what  manner 
of  spirit  ye  are  of,  are  not  found  in  most  of  the  best  manuscripts;  but 
the  fact  of  the  rebuke  is  enough  for  our  purpose. 


206     OLD   TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

are  more  minute.  More  than  once  we  read  that  He 
showed  them  that  all  things  must  he  fulfilled  which 
were  written  in  the  law  and  the  prophets  and  the  psalms 
concerning  Him.  "These,"  that  is,  the  Old  Testa- 
ment Scriptures,  "are  they  which  testify  of  me." 
"  Moses  wrote  of  me,"  etc.  What  we  should  very 
much  like  to  possess,  and  what  we  seldom  find  upon 
His  own  lips,  is  a  direct  reference  to  actual  passages 
in  the  law,  the  prophets,  and  the  psalms  concerning 
Him.  This  is  no  doubt  in  part  made  good  by  the 
Book  of  Acts,  which  repeatedly  emphasizes  particu- 
lar passages  of  Old  Testament  Scripture.  But  what 
would  we  not  give  to  possess  the  very  words  in  which 
our  Lord  opened  up  the  Scriptures  to  His  disciples  ? 
In  the  largest  sense,  He  regarded  Himself  as  fulfill- 
ing the  law  and  the  prophets :  they  without  Him  could 
not  be  made  perfect.  He  fulfilled  them  by  embody- 
ing their  inmost  spirit.  He  loved  them  because  they 
"  hung  upon  love."  The  love  that  they  expressed  He 
came  to  be.  He  gave  shape  to  their  suggestions.  He 
elicited  their  inmost  spirit.  He  said  what  they  had 
struggled  and  meant  to  say.  He  completed  what  they 
had  begun.  He  is  the  fulfilment  of  their  purest  and 
most  passionate  hopes. 

And  all  this  in  the  largest  sense.  Hardly  ever  does 
there  fall  from  His  own  lips  such  an  Old  Testament 
reference  to  the  definite  details  of  His  life  as  has  so 
often  formed  the  staple  of  the  Messianic  argument. 
When  He  does  connect  a  definite  passage  with  Him- 
self, when,  for  example,  in  the  Nazareth  synagogue, 
He  claimed  that  the  great  prophecy  in  Isaiah  Ixi.  was 
fulfilled  that  day  in  Himself,  it  is,  we  find,  a  passage 


CRITICISM    AND    CHRIST        207 

which  illustrates  the  spirit  and  character  of  the  Mes- 
siah, and  not  the  detailed  incidents  of  His  life.  It 
was  not  on  the  fact  that  He  was  born  in  this  place  or 
that,  or  belonged  to  this  tribe  or  that,  that  He  based 
His  claims  to  Messiahship ;  but  on  the  fact  that  He 
was  one  who  had  a  message  of  good  tidings  for  the 
poor,  one  whose  task  was  to  proclaim  release  to  the 
captives,  sight  to  the  blind,  liberty  to  the  bruised  —  in 
general,  to  proclaim  the  acceptable  year  of  the  Lord. 
To  follow  out  this  line  of  argument  would  lead  to  an 
elaborate  discussion  of  Messianic  prophecy,  and  this 
is  aside  from  our  immediate  purpose.  But  it  is  im- 
portant to  note  that  Christ  regards  Himself  as  fulfill- 
ing the  Old  Testament  rather  in  its  general  spirit  than 
in  its  particular  detail.  His  comparative  indifference 
to  the  detail  which  Messianic  prophecy  has  for  cen- 
turies loved  to  emphasize  lifts  us  above  externalities 
to  a  larger  view  of  the  Old  Testament  as  a  great  and 
impressive  religious  unity,  the  meaning  of  which  be- 
came fully  clear  only  when  it  gathered  upon  Himself. 
Another  instructive  feature  in  the  references  of 
Christ  to  the  Old  Testament  is  that,  though  He  re- 
gards the  whole  as  a  real  unity,  certain  books  within 
that  unity  seem  to  interest  Him  much  more  than 
others  —  so  far,  that  is,  as  we  can  judge  from  the  quo- 
tations. More  than  two-thirds  of  all  His  citations 
from  the  Old  Testament  come  from  four  books  alone : 
Exodus,  Deuteronomy,  the  Psalter,  and  Isaiah.  It  was 
in  these  books  that  He  found  a  spirit  most  nearly 
akin  to  His  own,  and  this  must  be  taken  into  account 
in  any  estimate  of  His  attitude  to  the  Old  Testament. 
It  is  surely  no  accident  that  in  His  temptation  it  is 


ao8     OLD    TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

three  mighty  words  of  Deuteronomy  that  rise  to  His 
lips  —  large  words,  the  truth  of  which  appeals  to  every 
religious  soul.1  In  the  words  of  Exodus  He  institutes 
the  supper  which  is  to  commemorate  His  death  for  all 
time ;  by  an  appeal  to  that  book  he  justified  the  faith 
in  immortality.  In  words  from  the  Book  of  Isaiah  He 
opens  and  vindicates  His  ministry ;  and  in  the  words 
of  a  Psalm  He  commends  His  spirit  into  the  hands  of 
His  Father. 

But  while  Christ  could  contemplate  the  Old  Testa- 
ment as  a  whole,  and  while  within  that  whole  He  had 
his  favorite  books,  He  was  familiar  with  all  its  detail, 
and  for  purposes  of  illustration,  argument,  and  ap- 
peal He  referred  to  it  again  and  again.  He  alludes, 
directly  or  indirectly,  to  the  creation  of  man,  male 
and  female,  the  divine  institutions  of  marriage  and 
the  Sabbath,  the  murder  of  Abel  by  Cain,  the  times 
of  Noah  and  the  flood,  the  patriarchs,  especially  father 
Abraham,  the  twelve  tribes  of  Israel,  the  destruction 
of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  together  with  Lot's  wife, 
Jacob's  ladder,  the  burning  bush,  incidents  of  the  wil- 
derness wandering,  such  as  the  giving  of  manna  and 
the  raising  of  the  serpent,  David's  eating  of  the  shew- 
bread,  the  splendor  and  wisdom  of  Solomon,  the  queen 
of  Sheba,  the  drought  of  Elijah's  time,  the  widow  of 
Zarephath,  the  cure  of  Naaman  by  Elisha,  the  story  of 
Jonah.  Besides  these  historical  references  are  others 
to  the  legislation  —  to  the  law  of  leprosy,  for  example, 
which  is  ascribed  to  Moses ;  and  indeed  language  is 

1  "  Man  shall  not  live  by  bread  alone."  "  Thou  shalt  not  tempt 
the  Lord  thy  God."  "  Thou  shalt  worship  the  Lord  thy  God,  and  Him 
only  shalt  thou  serve." 


CRITICISM    AND    CHRIST        209 

used  which  may  be  not  unfairly  construed  as  suggest- 
ing that  Moses  is  the  author  of  the  whole  Pentateuch. 
Besides  the  definite  phrase  in  John  (v.  46),  Moses 
wrote  of  me,1  we  occasionally  meet  with  the  combina- 
tion Moses  and  the  prophets  (Luke  xvi.  29,  31),  in 
which  Moses  stands  for  the  Pentateuch. 

Now  there  can  be  practically  no  doubt  that  Christ 
believed  in  the  historicity  of  all  the  incidents  to  which 
He  alluded,  as  well  as  in  the  Mosaic  authorship  of 
the  Pentateuch,  if  not  also  in  the  Davidic  authorship 
of  the  Psalms.  Doubtless  it  is  abstractly  possible  to 
maintain  that  He  really  held  other  views  —  knew,  for 
example,  that  the  Pentateuch  was  composite,  and  that 
some  of  the  incidents  He  alluded  to  were  not  strictly 
historical  —  but  that  He  accepted  and  expressed  the 
common  view  in  accommodation  to  contemporary 
opinion.  But  besides  the  suggestion  of  trimming 
which  would  attach  to  a  Christ  who  was  thus  divided 
in  His  own  mind,  it  can  hardly  be  maintained  that 
that  is  the  natural  impression  made  by  His  words. 
As  it  was  in  the  days  of  Noah,  even  so  shall  it  be.  Re- 
member Lot's  wife.  The  power  of  such  statements 
and  appeals  depends  largely  on  a  real  conviction,  on 
the  part  of  speaker  and  hearer  alike,  of  the  historical 
reality  of  the  incidents  alluded  to.  This  much  it 
seems  imperative  to  concede.  Now  arises  the  ques- 
tion, Does  this  concession  necessarily  stamp  the 
incidents  as  historic  ?  Does  Christ's  incidental  en- 
dorsement of  such  incidents  and  ascriptions  of  author- 

1  The  analogy  of  Acts  iii.  22 ;  vii.  37  (cf.  John  vi.  14 ;  vii.  40),  might 
be  urged  as  indicating  that  the  reference  here  is  only  or  particularly 
to  Deut.  xviii.  18 ;  so  that  this,  strictly  speaking,  might  imply  no  more 
than  the  Mosaic  authorship  of  Deuteronomy. 

14 


210     OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

ship  foreclose  scientific  investigation  ?  It  is  here 
that  the  two  schools  of  interpretation  part  company, 
the  one  maintaining  that  the  question  is  still  open, 
the  other  that  loyalty  to  Christ  leaves  only  one  course 
possible. 

Let  us  look  first  at  the  question  of  authorship.  It 
is  in  all  probability  only  an  accident  that  the  two 
passages  from  Isaiah  which  Christ  cites  with  compar- 
ative fulness l  are  passages  whose  genuineness  is  not 
contested  by  modern  scholarship.  There  can  be  little 
doubt  that  He,  in  common  with  His  contemporaries, 
would  have  cited  with  equal  readiness,  as  Isaiah's,  a 
passage  from  the  latter  part  of  the  prophecy.  But 
what  we  cannot  too  strongly  accentuate  is  this,  that 
the  truth  of  a  prophecy  does  not  stand  or  fall  with  the 
accuracy  or  inaccuracy  of  the  traditional  ascription, 
nor  is  the  authority  of  Christ  in  any  way  compro- 
mised by  adopting  such  an  ascription.  When  the  Book 
of  the  Prophet  Isaiah  was  given  Him  in  the  synagogue 
of  Nazareth,  He  claimed  that  the  passage  which  He 
read  from  it  was  that  day  fulfilled  in  Himself.  Now, 
is  it  not  clear  as  noonday  that  that  claim  is  justified, 
whatever  be  the  literary  origin  of  the  prophecy  ?  Both 
the  truth  of  the  prophecy  and  the  authority  of  Christ 
—  which  are  spiritual  things  —  remain  unaffected  by 
that  consideration.  The  ideal  there  enunciated  — 
for  it  is  an  ideal  rather  than  a  prediction  —  becomes 
a  reality  in  Him.  Whether  it  be  an  utterance  of 
Isaiah  the  son  of  Amoz,  or  of  an  exilic  prophet  in 
Babylon,  or  even  of  a  post-exilic  prophet,  the  proph- 
ecy assuredly  found  its  fulfilment  in  Him ;  and  it 

1  Is.  vi.  9  f.  (Matt.  xiii.  14  f.) ;  Is.  xxix.  13  (Matt.  xv.  7  £.)• 


CRITICISM    AND    CHRIST        211 

is  quite  beside  the  point  to  adduce  such  a  passage 
to  decide  the  literary  question  of  the  authorship,  a 
question  which  at  that  time  had  never  been  raised, 
and  which  in  any  case  is  quite  irrelevant  to  the  spir- 
itual purpose  for  which  the  passage  is  quoted. 

It  has  been  too  much  the  fashion  to  confuse  author- 
ship with  authority.  Disproof,  if  it  were  forthcoming, 
of  the  traditional  view  of  the  authorship  of  a  book 
would  not  in  any  sense  invalidate  its  message,  if  it 
have  any.  Whatever  real  authority  it  has,  is  inher- 
ent. It  is  not  essentially  strengthened,  if  it  comes  to 
us  under  the  cover  of  a  great  name ;  nor  is  it  essen- 
tially weakened  if  it  come  to  us  anonymously,  nor 
even  if  it  be  ascribed  to  a  wrong  source.  If  any  one 
were  now-a-days  to  quote  as  Milton's,  Conscience  does 
make  cowards  of  us  all,  we  should  not  dispute  the 
truth  of  the  quotation,  but  the  error  of  the  ascription. 
How  little  importance  was  attached  to  the  question  of 
authorship  we  can  see  by  examining  the  citations 
from  the  Old  Testament  in  the  New.  Out  of  nearly 
two  hundred  and  eighty-six  express  quotations,  only 
in  fifty-one  cases,  less  than  a  fifth,  is  a  personal 
name  connected  with  the  quotation.  This  proves  — 
what  ought  to  need  no  proof  —  that  the  truth  was  felt 
to  be  its  own  witness,  and  that,  though  it  was  often 
associated  with  the  name  of  a  particular  man,  it  did 
not  depend  for  its  worth  or  power  on  that  association. 
It  is  interesting  to  note  how  often  Christ,  in  quoting 
from  the  Pentateuch,  omits  all  reference  to  Moses ; 
as,  for  example,  in  the  words  with  which  He  repelled 
the  temptation.  In  such  case  the  omission  is  no  loss, 
nor  would  the  addition  be  a  gain.  The  ascription  is 
in  no  case  the  important  thing. 


212     OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

This  will  be  the  more  clear,  if  we  remember  how 
large  a  tract  of  the  Old  Testament  is  anonymous.  To 
begin  with,  all  the  historical  books  except  Nehemiah, 
that  is,  nearly  half  of  the  Old  Testament.  Not  unto 
us,  0  Lord,  not  unto  us,  but  unto  Thy  name  give  glory 
would  be  a  not  inappropriate  motto  for  the  literary 
men  of  Israel.  Their  God  was  their  glory,  and  many 
of  the  greatest  of  them  were  content  to  be  forgotten. 

Non  omnis  moriar,  multaque  pars  mei 
Vitabit  Libitinam  — 

this  proud  self-consciousness,  at  least  within  the  lit- 
erary sphere,  is  alien  to  the  Hebrew  spirit ;  so  that 
the  anonymity  of  so  large  a  portion  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment need  occasion  no  surprise.  But  it  ought  to  put 
us  on  our  guard  against  unduly  accentuating  the  fact 
of  reputed  authorship.  Even  if  the  authorship  be 
disproved,  the  authority  would  not  vanish.  If  it 
were  proved  beyond  the  shadow  of  a  doubt  that 
Isaiah  Ixi.  is  post-exilic,  it  would  not  in  the  faintest 
degree  mar  the  splendor  of  the  original  prophecy, 
or  the  wonder  and  certainty  of  its  fulfilment  in 
Christ. 

While  Moses  is  often  synonymous  with  the  law, 
and  no  doubt,  in  Christ's  time,  was  regarded  as  its 
author  no  less  than  its  hero,  two  things  have  to  be 
remembered  :  (i)  that  the  literary  question  of  author- 
ship had  not  yet  been  raised,  and  that  therefore  the 
popular  nomenclature  has  only  the  value  of  an  un- 
proved tradition ; 1  and  (ii)  there  are  hints  enough 

1  Even  the  conservative  Pelitzsch,  in  his  "  New  Commentary  on 
Genesis/'  could  say, "  Our  Lord  and  His  apostles  conceive  of  the  Thorah 


CRITICISM    AND    CHRIST       213 

scattered  all  over  the  Gospels,  that  the  human  author- 
ship of  the  books  is  a  matter  of  comparative  indif- 
ference. They  are  a  word  of  God ;  that  is  of  more 
importance  than  that  they  are  the  words  of  some  par- 
ticular man.  A  prophetic  word  is  often  referred  to 
simply  as  the  word  that  was  spoken  ly  the  Lord 
through  the  prophet  (Matt.  i.  22 ;  ii.  15).  Who  the 
prophet  was  is,  comparatively  speaking,  immaterial. 
Even  when  his  name  is  wrongly  given,  as  it  is  by 
Matthew *  when  he  refers  a  prophecy  of  Zechariah's 
to  Jeremiah,  it  is  still  a  word  of  the  Lord,  and,  as 
such,  stands  fast.  It  is  particularly  instructive  to 
compare  the  statements  of  the  synoptists  in  their 
accounts  of  the  same  incident.  In  Matthew's  ac- 
count 2  of  Christ's  answer  to  the  challenge  of  the 
Scribes  and  Pharisees  for  transgressing  the  tradi- 
tions of  the  elders,  we  read:  God  said,  Honor  thy 
father  and  thy  mother;  Mark3  gives  His  words  as, 
Moses  said,  Honor  thy  father  and  thy  mother.  It  will 
hardly  be  maintained  that  Christ  used  both  expres- 
sions ;  we  are  therefore  left  to  the  conclusion  that,  in 
the  eyes  of  the  evangelists,  the  Mosaic  authorship  of 
the  words  —  doubtless  believed  in  by  both  —  is  an  un- 
important matter.  One  of  them  ignores  it;  what  is 
of  importance  is  that  the  fifth  commandment  is  a 
word  of  God.  When  we  read  both  that  Moses  said 
and  God  said,  our  attention  is  at  once  directed  not  to 
the  man  who  spoke,  but  to  the  divine  word  spoken. 

as  might  be  expected  of  them  as  members  of  their  nation :  it  is  to  them 
the  work  of  Moses ;  .  .  .  but  historico-critical  investigation  as  to  his 
share  as  author  in  the  composition  of  the  Pentateuch  is  left  free,  as  far 
as  New  Testament  statements  are  concerned." 

1  xxvii.  9.  2  xv.  4.  8.  vii.  10. 


0LD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

Still  more  significant  are  the  three  accounts  of  the 
reply  of  Jesus  to  the  challenge  of  the  Sadducees.  The 
words  of  Luke l  run  thus  : 

That  the  dead  are  raised,  even  Moses  showed,  in  (the 
place  concerning)  the  Bush,  when  he  calleth  the  Lord  the 
God  of  Abraham,  and  the  God  of  Isaac,  and  the  God  of 
Jacob. 

In  Mark2  we  read  : 

Have  ye  not  read  in  the  book  of  Moses,  in  (the 
place  concerning)  the  Bush,  how  God  spake  unto  him, 
saying,  I  am  the  God  of  Abraham,  and  the  God  of  Isaac, 
and  the  God  of  Jacob. 

According  to  Matthew  :  3 

Have  ye  not  read  that  which  was  spoken  unto  you 
by  God,  saying,  etc. 

Here,  as  in  the  previous  citation  from  Matthew, 
the  name  of  Moses  is  omitted :  the  only  thing  of  real 
importance  is  that  the  great  word  with  which  Christ 
puts  the  Sadducees  to  shame  was  a  word  of  God.  It 
is  also  highly  interesting  and  significant  that  Matthew 
quotes  the  words  as  "  spoken  unto  you  by  God ; "  the 
New  Testament  writers  regard  the  Old  Testament  as 
a  book  fitted  and  intended  to  edify  subsequent  genera- 
tions. The  phrase  in  Mark  suggests  that  the  book 
was  regarded  as  written  by  Moses.  Possibly,  too,  this 
is  the  meaning  of  the  phrase  in  Luke.  The  looseness, 
however,  of  Luke's  allusion  is  very  obvious ;  the  word 
which  in  Exodus  iii.  6,  followed  by  Matthew  and  Mark, 
is  spoken  by  God,  is  here  represented  as  spoken  ly 

1  xx.  37.  2  xii.  26.  3  xxii.  31. 


CRITICISM    AND    CHRIST        215 

Moses.  These  discrepancies,  as  we  have  often  said, 
do  not  touch  the  heart  of  the  matter ;  they  are  only 
perplexing  to  one  who  approaches  the  Bible  with  pre- 
conceived ideas  of  what  it  must  be,  and  expects  from 
it  what  it  does  not  pretend  to  offer.  Indeed  the  dis- 
crepancies are  incidentally  of  great  value,  suggesting, 
as  they  do,  that  we  are  at  liberty  to  emphasize  only 
that  common  element  in  which  they  all  agree.  Even 
if  the  Mosaic  authorship  of  the  Pentateuch  were  ab- 
solutely disproved,  it  would  not  in  the  slightest  affect 
Matthew's  account  of  the  scene,  nor  would  it  essen- 
tially affect  either  of  the  other  two  accounts.  The 
omission  of  the  human  authorship  by  one  writer 
shows  that  it  is  in  no  case  important.  Besides,  the 
name  of  Moses  is  often  nothing  but  a  convenient  des- 
ignation for  the  Pentateuch ;  it  is  undoubtedly  so  in 
the  words  of  Paul,  "  Whensoever  Moses  is  read,  a  veil 
lieth  upon  their  heart "  (2  Cor.  iii.  15). 

It  is  quite  clear  that  the  name  of  a  man  may  be 
used  for  convenience'  sake  to  designate  a  book. 
Samuel  is  represented  by  St.  Peter l  as  foretelling 
the  Messianic  days.  Now  the  reference  here  must 
be  to  a  prophecy  of  Nathan,  as  no  such  word  appears 
anywhere  upon  the  lips  of  Samuel.  Besides,  Samuel 
could  not  have  written,  at  any  rate,  the  whole  of  the 
books  that  go  by  his  name  —  though  there  is  a  Tal- 
mudic  tradition  to  that  effect  —  because  they  contain 
an  account  of  his  death.  We  must  conclude,  then,  that 
the  name  "  Samuel "  is  simply  a  convenient  designa- 
tion for  the  book,  and  leaves  the  question  of  author- 
ship completely  open.  Similarly,  David  is  used  as 

1  Acts  iii.  24. 


216     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

synonymous  with  the  Psalter.  A  Psalm l  which  is  not 
ascribed  to  him  in  the  Hebrew  text  is  quoted  by  the 
author  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews2  as  in  "  David." 
Here  are  two  undoubted  cases  in  which  the  name  of 
a  man  is  used  to  designate  a  book,  without  any  neces- 
sary implication  that  the  man  wrote  the  book  :  in  the 
latter  case,  there  is  no  proof  at  all  in  our  only  authori- 
tative source,  that  is,  the  Hebrew  text  of  the  Psalter  ; 
and  in  the  former  case  the  thing  is  impossible.  There 
is,  then,  every  probability  that  the  name  of  Moses  was 
similarly  used  to  cover  the  Pentateuch.  As  all  that 
was  written  in  the  books  of  Samuel  could  be  ascribed 
to  Samuel,  and  as  any  Psalm  might  be  ascribed  to 
David,  so  any  part  of  the  Pentateuch  could  be  ascribed 
to  Moses,  as  he  was  the  central  figure  of  its  history 
and  the  source  of  its  legislation.  Doubtless  in  his 
case  there  was  a  very  strong  tradition  to  the  effect 
that  he  also  wrote  it  —  a  tradition  which  has  some 
slender  support  in  isolated  statements  of  the  Penta- 
teuch itself.  But  it  is  no  more  than  a  tradition, 
which  has  to  be  examined ;  and  even  if  it  were  re- 
futed, it  would  not  affect  any  New  Testament  allu- 
sion. It  would  be  as  true,  in  the  sense  explained,  to 
say  "  Moses  wrote  of  me,"  as  to  say  "  Samuel  told  of 
these  days." 

The  Pentateuch  makes  no  claim  anywhere  to  be 
from  the  hand  of  Moses.  On  five  or  six  occasions  he 
is  said  to  have  written  or  to  have  been  commanded 
to  write  something:  the  war  with  Amalek  (Ex. 
xvii.  14),  the  book  of  the  covenant  (Ex.  xxiv.  4; 
xxxiv.  27),  the  itinerary  (Num.  xxxiii.  2),  a  song 

1  xcv.  a  iv.  7. 


CRITICISM    AND    CHRIST       217 

(Deut.  xxxi.  22),  and  the  words  of  the  law  (Deut. 
xxxi.  9,  24)  —  a  phrase  which  has  very  often  been 
interpreted  to  refer  to  the  Book  of  Deuteronomy  at 
least ;  but  the  very  same  phrase  is  used  elsewhere  1 
in  a  context  where  it  can  only  refer  to  a  small  nucleus 
of  the  law  —  possibly  the  Ten  Commandments  —  at 
any  rate,  brief  enough  to  be  engraved  on  the  stones 
which  were  to  be  set  up  when  the  people  crossed  the 
Jordan.  These  references  to  the  literary  activity  of 
Moses  are  valuable  and  interesting ;  but  they  are  a 
long  way  from  proving  that  he  wrote  the  Pentateuch. 
Rather  the  explicit  statement  that  he  did  write 
those  things  suggest  that  he  did  not  write  the  rest ; 
else  why  should  these  be  specially  singled  out? 
And  this,  be  it  remembered,  is  the  testimony  of  our 
oldest  source.  It  is  easy  to  see,  of  course,  how  the 
fact  that  the  law  was  derived  from  him  should  in 
course  of  time  have  given  rise  to  the  idea  that  it  had 
been  written  by  him,  especially  as  an  important  part 
of  it  was  expressly  claimed  for  him. 

It  is  a  familiar  fact  that,  once  a  book  has  been 
known  for  some  time  by  a  certain  name,  it  often  retains 
that  name  with  astonishing  tenacity,  even  when  its 
right  to  it  has  been  satisfactorily  and  completely  dis- 
proved. The  Apostles'  Creed  will  probably  be  known 
by  this  name  to  the  end  of  time,  though  we  now  know 
that  the  apostles  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  framing 
of  it.2  Even  if  the  Petrine  authorship  of  the  Second 
Epistle  of  Peter  were  conclusively  disproved,  we  should 
in  all  probability  still  continue  to  call  it,  at  any  rate 

1  Deut.  xxvii.  3. 

2  Cf .  McGiffert,  "  The  Apostles'  Creed,"  pp.  27-30. 


2i8     OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

for  popular  purposes,  by  its  familiar  name.  It  is  truly 
astonishing  to  find  that  in  the  English  edition  of  the 
Revised  Version  of  the  New  Testament  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews  is  entitled  the  Epistle  of  Paul  the  Apostle 
to  the  Hebrews  ;  and  that  although  the  best  New 
Testament  scholars  were  working  on  the  Revision  and 
there  is  a  practically  unanimous  consensus  of  New 
Testament  scholarship  for  rejecting  the  Pauline  author- 
ship. It  is  no  less  astonishing  to  find  German  writers, 
such  as  Kautzsch  and  Meinhold,  who  have  not  only 
discarded  the  Mosaic  authorship  of  the  Pentateuch, 
but  argued  against  it,  still  retaining  the  ordinary 
German  names  for  its  various  books  —  Genesis  as  the 
first  book  of  Moses,  and  so  on.  This  should  surely  be 
enough  to  prove  that  no  argument  can  be  founded 
upon  a  name.  Tradition  dies  hard  ;  and,  once  a  book 
has  found  a  convenient  designation,  it  is  likely  to  re- 
tain it,  in  spite  of  all  disproof  of  its  historical  propriety. 
After  this  general  discussion  it  may  be  well  to  look 
more  particularly  at  three  passages  which  have  played 
an  important  part  in  the  consideration  of  Christ's  atti- 
tude to  the  Old  Testament :  His  reference  to  Jonah, 
to  the  110th  Psalm,  and  to  Exodus  iii.  6,  with  its  argu- 
ment for  immortality.  The  peculiar  nature  of  His 
allusion  to  the  book  of  Jonah  has  been  held  to  prove 
that  He  regarded  the  much  debated  incident  of  that 
book  as  an  historical  reality.  Possibly  He  did ;  there 
is  no  proof  that  He  did  not.  But  the  charm  and  the 
educative  power  of  Christ's  allusion  to  the  story  lies 
partly  in  this,  that  He  lays  no  stress  on  that  aspect  of 
it.  It  is  in  the  larger  issues  of  the  book  that  He  is 
interested.  The  "  sign  "  that  appealed  to  Him  most 


CRITICISM    AND    CHRIST        219 

powerfully  was  not  the  sea-inonster,  but  the  conver- 
sion of  men.  "  No  sign  shall  be  given  you,"  He  tells 
the  adulterous  generation,  "  but  the  sign  of  the  prophet 
Jonah."  Now  what  was  that  sign  ?  That,  as  Jonah 
was  three  days  and  three  nights  in  the  fish's  belly,  so 
the  Son  of  man  should  be  three  days  and  three  nights 
in  the  bosom  of  the  earth  ?  That  is  simply  impossible : 
firstly,  because  Christ  was  not  three  days  and  three 
nights  in  the  earth,  but  only  one  full  day  and  two 
nights.  We  may  indeed,  considering  the  ancient  way 
of  reckoning  the  two  extreme  days,  speak  of  Him  as 
having  been  three  days  and  two  nights  in  the  earth, 
but  in  no  case  three  days  and  three  nights.  In  this 
very  important  detail  the  statement  breaks  down. 
But  again,  supposing  this  insurmountable  difficulty 
were  got  over,  we  should  then  be  left  with  a  statement 
equally  impossible,  namely,  that  no  sign  would  be  given 
but  the  resurrection  of  Christ  —  the  most  stupendous 
sign  conceivable  ;  for  Christ  said  on  another  occasion 
that  men  who  could  resist  the  message  of  Moses  and 
the  prophets,  would  not  be  convinced,  even  if  one  were 
to  rise  from  the  dead ;  that  is,  even  by  a  miracle  of  the 
most  startling  kind. 

There  are  these  two  reasons,  founded  in  the  nature 
of  the  case,  for  believing  that  these  words  could  not 
have  been  spoken  by  Christ.  When  we  turn  to  the 
text,  we  find  our  suspicions  confirmed.  The  utterance 
is  recorded  both  by  St.  Matthew  (xii.  39-41)  and  St. 
Luke  (xi.  29,  30,  32),  and  in  St.  Luke  the  troublesome 
words  do  not  occur.  In  this  place  we  read :  For  as 
Jonah  was  a  sign  to  the  Ninevites,  so  also  shall  the  Son 
of  man  be  to  this  generation.  Jonah  was  himself  the 


220     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

sign.  The  tragedy  was  that  while  the  Ninevites  re- 
pented at  his  preaching,  the  Jews  resisted  the  preach- 
ing of  One  who  was  greater  than  he.  This  version 
bears  upon  the  face  of  it  the  stamp  of  probability.  It 
is  not  encumbered  by  the  insurmountable  difficulties 
of  the  other.  It  does  not  appeal  to  externalities :  it 
moves  within  the  sphere  of  the  spirit.  Whether  the 
amplification  of  the  sign  in  Matthew's  Gospel  be  due 
to  Matthew  himself  or  another,  we  cannot  now  tell. 

Here,  then,  lower  criticism,  which  is  criticism  of  the 
text,  and  higher  criticism,  which  is  criticism  of  the 
contents,  converge  towards  the  same  result.  They 
lead  us,  no  doubt,  to  believe  that  Jesus  regarded  the 
story  of  Jonah  as  historical,  but  they  also  show  that 
His  interest  in  the  book  was  a  spiritual  interest,  and 
did  not  gather  about  the  miracle  of  the  fish. 

Let  us  examine  now  His  reference  to  the  110th 
Psalm.  This,  be  it  noted  at  the  outset,  is  the  only  case 
in  which  the  argument  turns  upon  authorship.  Im- 
portant as  it  always  is  to  read  texts  in  the  light  of 
their  context,  it  is  of  peculiar  importance  here.  We 
have  to  remember  that  the  utterance  of  Christ  was  not 
made  in  the  course  of  preaching  or  teaching,  but  in  the 
course  of  disputation.  It  has  all  the  minuteness  and 
color  of  controversy.  It  is  addressed  to  Pharisees, 
and,  as  addressed  to  them,  has  a  peculiar  relevance 
and  propriety.  Its  design,  as  Valeton l  has  aptly 
suggested,  was  not  to  convince  us  that  the  Messiah  is 
at  once  David's  son  and  David's  lord,  but  to  convince 
the  Pharisees.  He  puts  His  question  not  to  instruct, 
but  to  shame  them.  He  wishes  them  to  feel  that  their 

1  "  Christus  und  das  Alte  Testament/'  p.  48. 


CRITICISM   AND    CHRIST        221 

zeal  in  a  bad  cause  has  betrayed  them  into  ridiculous 
indiscretion,  and  that  they  have  not  carefully  consid- 
ered the  consequences  of  admissions  which  they  would 
all  have  made  without  hesitation.  He  takes  them 
upon  their  own  ground,  and  shows  them  how  short- 
sighted and  illogical  they  are.  They  ascribe  the  Psalm 
to  David,  without  realizing  the  problem  relative  to  the 
person  of  the  Messiah  which  such  an  ascription  in- 
volves. No  doubt  Christ  shares  their  belief  in  the 
Davidic  authorship  ;  we  cannot  reconcile  the  explicit- 
ness  of  His  words  with  any  other  supposition.  But 
the  passage  is  not  adduced  to  settle  a  literary  question : 
it  is  cited  to  silence  the  controversialists  who  had 
thought  so  skilfully  to  silence  Him.  Even  if  the 
Davidic  authorship  of  the  Psalm  were  completely  dis- 
proved, it  would  not  in  the  least  destroy  the  relevance 
of  the  argument  as  against  the  Pharisees.  "  I  am  not 
prepared  to  assert,"  says  Peters,1  "  that  it  is  absolutely 
impossible  that  these  words  might  have  been,  in  sub- 
stantially their  present  form,  composed  by  David 
himself,  although  it  is  extremely  improbable.  As  far 
as  our  Lord's  utterances  are  concerned,  however,  I 
consider  it  a  matter  of  complete  indifference  whether 
they  were  composed  by  David  or  Simon  Maccabaeus."  2 
One  more  passage  remains  to  consider:  the  argu- 
ment for  immortality  deduced  from  Exodus  iii.  6 — I 
am  the  God  of  Abraham,  and  the  God  of  Isaac,  and 
the  God  of  Jacob.  Here  again  we  have  to  remember 

1  "  The  Old  Testament  aud  the  New  Scholarship,"  p.  74. 

2  It  is  also  worth  remembering,  as  has  already  been  pointed  out, 
that  any  quotation  from  the  Psalter  could  be  cited  as  David's.   A  quo- 
tation from  Ps.  xcv.  7  is  cited  in  Heb.  iv.  7  as  in  David,  and  the  second 
Psalm,  anonymous  in  the  Hebrew,  is  in  Acts  iv.  25  also  assigned  to  him. 


222     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

that  this  passage  issues  from  an  atmosphere  of  con- 
troversy. It  is  addressed  not  to  us,  but  primarily  to 
the  Sadducees.  If  it  convinced  or  silenced  them,  it 
served  the  purpose  for  which  Christ  uttered  it.  It  is 
therefore  beside  the  point  to  adduce  this  passage  in 
proof  of  the  historicity  of  the  patriarchs.  It  was 
cited  to  establish  not  a  historic,  but  a  spiritual  fact  — 
the  fact  of  immortality.  The  fact  on  which  the  argu- 
ment was  based  was  believed  by  the  Sadducees  to  be 
historic,  and  no  doubt  by  Christ  as  well.  We  cannot 
conceive  of  Him  as  offering,  even  for  purposes  of 
controversy,  an  argument  whose  basis  He  knew  to  be 
insecure.  But  even  if  the  historicity  of  the  patriarchs 
could  be  disproved,  it  would  not  in  any  way  affect  the 
argument  as  against  the  Sadducees.  Neither  would  it 
affect  the  spiritual  fact  of  immortality,  for  that  is  a 
fact  independent  of  this  particular  argument.  It  is 
therefore  unfair  to  say  that  if  you  deny  the  exist- 
ence of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  you  destroy  the 
argument  for  immortality.  You  destroy  only  this 
particular  form  of  the  argument,  which  was  for  the 
Sadducees,  and  not  for  us.  The  fact  of  immortality  is 
an  independent  spiritual  fact,  resting  on  the  intimacy 
of  the  relations  between  God  and  man,  and  would  be  in 
no  way  disturbed  if  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob  had 
never  been.  The  words  of  Christ,  born  as  they  were 
in  controversy,  assume  the  form  of  an  argument ; 
but  they  are  words  for  all  time,  and  they  have  the 
force,  if  not  now  strictly  of  argument,  at  any  rate  of 
illustration.  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob  are  types 
of  the  men  with  whom  God  enters  into  living  re- 
lationship. The  relationship  stands  whether  these 


CRITICISM    AND    CHRIST        223 

particular  illustrations  of  it  are  historical  or  not ;  and 
on  that  relationship  rests  the  fact  of  immortality.  If 
the  intimacy  between  God  and  us  is  such  that  He  is 
not  ashamed  to  be  called  and  to  call  Himself  our 
God,  then  we  too  are  immortal  with  His  immortality. 
It  cannot  be  that  a  communion  which  a  man  had 
all  his  life  enjoyed  with  God,  should  be  interrupted 
by  death.  Beneath  the  controversial  form  and  the 
Old  Testament  appeal,  that  is  the  real  drift  of  the 
Master's  utterance. 

The  result  of  the  whole  discussion  has  thus  far 
been  to  suggest  that  Christ  leaves  perfectly  open  the 
literary  and  historical  questions  which  occupy  modern 
scholarship  and  divide  its  ranks.  Repeatedly  He 
quotes  the  Pentateuch,  but  never  to  prove  that  Moses 
wrote  it;  nor  is  the  Mosaic  authorship  ever  really 
relevant  to  the  spiritual  purpose  for  which  the  quota- 
tion is  made.  Repeatedly  He  quotes  the  Psalms,  but 
never  to  settle  the  question  of  their  authorship.  Once, 
indeed,  the  argument  turns  upon  authorship,  and  on 
that  psalm  opinion  is  now  seriously  divided ;  but,  in 
the  given  situation,  the  argument  was  in  any  case 
valid.  Repeatedly  He  quotes  the  prophets,  but  never 
to  settle  the  literary  questions  which  engage  us  to- 
day. Many  of  the  greatest  words  are  left  without  a 
prophet's  name,  for  example,  /  will  have  mercy  and 
not  sacrifice. 

It  may  fairly  be  asked,  however,  whether  the  ques- 
tions be  really  left  as  open  as  they  seem  to  be.  It  is 
admitted  that  in  all  probability  Jesus  believed  that 
Moses  wrote  the  Pentateuch,  however  little  that 
belief  affects  the  substance  of  His  teaching.  It  ia 


224     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

practically  certain  that  He  believed  in  the  Davidic 
authorship  of  the  110th  Psalm.  It  is  quite  certain 
that  He  believed  in  the  historicity  of  the  patriarchal 
narratives.  That  being  so,  can  these  things  remain  an 
open  question  to  those  who  bow  the  knee  to  Him  as 
the  Truth  incarnate?  Do  the  opinions  which  He  can 
be  proved  to  have  held  on  these  subjects  not  foreclose 
all  scientific  investigation  or  discussion,  or  at  least 
do  they  not  necessitate  one  conclusion  ?  This  question 
leads  directly  to  a  consideration  of  Christ's  person 
and  mission ;  and  the  only  approximate  answer  is  to 
be  found,  not  in  abstract  speculation,  but  in  an  un- 
prejudiced examination  of  such  statements  and  sug- 
gestions as  we  can  find  on  the  pages  of  the  New 
Testament,  and,  in  particular,  of  historical  statements 
relative  to  His  earthly  life.  Little  is  gained  for  our 
present  purpose  by  the  discussion  of  kenotic  theories, 
or  by  large  assumptions  as  to  what  Christ  could  or 
could  not  have  known.  We  will  not  argue,  as  has 
been  argued,  that  His  human  nature  was  like  the 
original  nature  of  Adam  before  the  Fall ;  that  this 
perfection  was  still  further  enhanced  —  if,  indeed, 
perfection  can  be  made  more  perfect  —  by  the  super- 
natural grace  bestowed  at  baptism,  and  also  through 
the  elevation  of  the  human  in  His  person,  by  reason 
of  its  union  with  the  divine.  We  shall  try  to  steady 
our  discussion  upon  the  acknowledged  facts. 

The  most  stupendous  of  those  facts  is  that  the 
Word  became  flesh.1  It  is  impossible  to  fathom  the 

1  We  are  here  arguing  with  those  who  would  not  resent  an  appeal 
to  St.  John's  Gospel.  But  in  any  case  these  words  summarily  express 
what  the  others  throughout  imply  —  the  reality  of  Christ's  humanity. 


or  THE 

I  UN 

CRITICISM   AND 

implications  of  this  simple  statement.  It  suggests 
infinitely  more  than  the  mere  corporeal  visibility  of 
the  Godhead.  The  incarnation  was  itself  an  accom- 
modation. Something  of  what  it  meant,  on  its  ethical 
side,  is  suggested  by  the  stories  of  the  temptation  and 
the  passion.  In  the  days  of  His  flesh  —  here  we  are 
on  the  ground  of  historic  fact  —  He  offered  up  prayers 
and  supplications  with  strong  crying  and  tears.1  The 
prayer  recorded  in  the  Gospels,  "  Not  my  will  but 
Thine  be  done,"  helps  us  to  imagine  how  sore  a 
struggle  it  was.  He  was  in  all  points  tempted  like  as 
we  are.  He  learned  obedience.  Here  we  are  assured 
that,  even  within  the  ethical  sphere,  Christ  grew. 
We  may  call  it  development  or  we  may  resent  the 
application  of  such  a  word  to  Christ;  but  the  fact 
remains  that  He  grew. 

If  it  be  possible  to  predicate  growth  of  Christ 
within  the  sphere  of  His  ethical  and  religious  nature, 
it  will  surely  not  be  impossible  within  the  sphere  of 
intellectual  knowledge.  This,  or  at  any  rate  mental 
growth  in  the  larger  sense,  is  expressly  attested  in  so 
many  words  by  St.  Luke,  twice  indeed  within  the  same 
chapter.  The  child  grew  and  waxed  strong,  becoming 
full  of  wisdom  (ii.  40).  Jesus  advanced  in  wisdom 
(ii.  52.)  It  behooved  Him  in  all  things  to  be  made 
like  unto  His  brethren,2  arid  one  of  those  things  may 
well  have  been  the  limitation  of  His  knowledge. 
Indeed,  in  one  of  the  most  solemn  utterances  of  His 
life,  He  admits  this  limitation.  He  admits  that  in 
common  with  men  and  angels  He  does  not  know  the 
day  nor  the  hour  of  His  second  coming:  that  is 

l  Heb.  v.  7.  *  Heb.  ii.  17. 

15 


226     OLD    TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

known  to  the  Father  alone.  Now,  if  a  priori  argu- 
ment is  ever  admissible,  we  should  have  been  inclined 
to  argue  that  this  is  just  one  of  the  things  which 
Christ  was  bound  to  know,  for  it  seems  to  fall  directly 
within  the  sphere  of  His  special  mission.  This,  at 
least,  is  no  irrelevant  literary  question.  It  bears 
directly,  though  we  need  not  say  vitally,  on  His  work 
as  judge  of  humanity ;  yet  He  does  not  know.  It  is 
impossible  to  turn  the  argument  by  saying  that  there 
is  a  great  difference  between  ignorance  of  the  future 
and  ignorance  of  the  past ;  to  omniscience  there  can 
be  none.  This  particular  future  is  one  which  in  the 
most  intimate  way  concerns  Christ  Himself;  in  any 
case,  this  utterance  is  enough  to  disprove  His  omnis- 
cience in  His  earthly  life.  It  is  not  possible  to  claim 
omniscience  for  Him  in  the  face  of  an  utterance  of 
His  own  in  which  He  implicitly  denies  it ;  and,  if  He 
be  not  omniscient,  it  is  arbitrary  to  assert  that  He 
must  at  least  have  known  the  past.  If  He  did  not 
completely  know  the  future,  there  is  no  reason  in  the 
logic  of  things  why  He  must  have  completely  known 
the  past.  If  one  of  the  things  which  was  intimately 
bound  up  with  His  mission  He  confesses  that  He  did 
not  know,  it  is  difficult  to  see  why  He  must  have  had 
perfect  knowledge  of  facts  and  problems  that  lay  com- 
pletely outside  the  immediate  sphere  of  that  mission. 
In  all  matters  which  were  not  strictly  relevant  to 
His  work  as  Saviour  and  Redeemer,  why  may  He  not 
have  shared  the  opinions  of  His  time  ?  Why  may 
He  not  have  been  like  His  brethren  in  this  as  in  other 
things?  He  wore  an  Oriental  dress.  He  spoke  an 
Oriental  language.  He  expressed  Himself  in  Oriental 


CRITICISM    AND   CHRIST        227 

ways.  We  are  assured  that  He  learned,  He  grew. 
Just  as  there  was  a  limitation  of  power,  attested  by 
His  being  hungry,  thirsty,  arid  weary,  so  it  would  not 
be  unnatural  to  suppose  —  even  if  we  had  not  His 
own  express  testimony  —  that  there  was  a  limitation 
of  knowledge.  But  the  more  He  has  in  common  with 
His  brethren,  the  more  amazing  are  the  differences 
that  separate  Him  from  them.  Assuming  that  both 
He  and  they  believed  in  the  Mosaic  authorship  of  the 
Pentateuch,  how  infinitely  more  profound  is  His 
interpretation  and  application  of  it  than  theirs! 
Whence  hath  this  man  these  things  ?  There  is  the 
marvel  of  Christ,  —  that  His  spiritual  insight  is  so 
immeasurably  above  theirs.  He  may  well  have  shared 
their  opinions  on  questions  of  authorship,  etc.,  with- 
out thereby  endorsing  them  for  all  time,  just  as  He 
shared  their  opinion  that  the  mustard  seed  was  the 
smallest  of  all  seeds,  without  thereby  binding  it  upon 
the  modern  conscience,  in  spite  of  irrefragable  evi- 
dence to  the  contrary. 

Further,  it  is  necessary  to  distinguish  between  the 
things  which  Christ  definitely  taught,  and  those  which 
lay  within  what  some  one  has  happily  called  the 
"  neutral  zone."  He  teaches  that  talents  are  given  in 
trust  and  to  be  used ;  but  He  does  not  teach  that 
Moses  wrote  the  Pentateuch.  He  may  assume  it ;  He 
may  believe  it ;  but  He  does  not  teach  it.  He  does 
not  make  it  a  condition  of  salvation.  It  falls  within 
the  neutral  zone.  It  could  never  be  so  important  to 
believe  it,  even  if  it  were  demonstrable,  as  to  believe 
that  no  man  can  serve  two  masters.  The  one  has  to 
do  with  literature,  the  other  with  life.  The  former 


228     OLD    TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

belief  does  not  touch  a  man's  character.  He  is  not 
the  better  for  believing  it,  nor  the  worse  for  doubting 
it.  But  the  latter  belief  will  guard  him  from  that 
compromise  which  is  the  ruin  of  life.  To  the  religious 
life  some  beliefs  are  vital,  others  are  irrelevant.  It 
would  be  a  great  surprise  to  find  Christ  co-ordinating 
these  two  in  importance.  In  point  of  fact,  He  does 
not  do  so.  His  positive  teaching  is  confined  to  the 
vital  beliefs.  He  does  not  teach  anything  at  variance 
with  the  results  of  Old  Testament  scholarship.  There 
is  nothing  to  hinder  a  man  from  accepting  every  word 
of  Christ's  teaching  and  every  result  of  the  literary 
criticism  of  the  Old  Testament.  He  leaves  the  ques- 
tions which  it  discusses  severely  alone.  Once  we 
read  that  Christ  taught  as  one  having  authority,  and 
we  have  but  to  examine  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount 
to  see  within  what  sphere  His  teaching  lay.  The  dif- 
ference between  Jesus  and  the  scribes  was  too  obvi- 
ous to  ignore.  The  people  were  astonished  by  His 
teaching.  The  teaching  of  the  scribes  was  confined, 
in  the  main,  to  trivialities  which  never  smote  the 
conscience  unless  to  offend  it :  Jesus  dealt  directly 
with  the  tremendous  issues  of  the  moral  and  spiritual 
life.  Men  may  hold  views  other  than  His  on  questions 
of  the  authorship  or  composition  of  Old  Testament 
books ;  but  no  one  can  dispute  what  He  taught.  So 
far  is  He,  however,  from  teaching  definitely  on  liter- 
ary and  historical  questions,  that  these  problems  had 
not  even  been  raised  in  His  day.  His  mission  was 
not  to  speak  authoritatively  on  the  science  of  Old 
Testament  Introduction,  any  more  than  on  medicine 
or  astronomy.  These  are  matters  which,  in  the  provi- 


CRITICISM   AND   CHRIST       219 

dence  of  God,  men  are  left  to  discover  for  themselves. 
They  constitute  no  part  of  revelation.  He  came  to 
preach  the  good  tidings  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  He 
came  that  men  might  have  life,  and  that  they  might 
have  it  more  abundantly.  His  mission  was  a  spiritual 
one,  and  literary  issues  were  irrelevant  to  it.  It  was 
no  part  of  His  task  to  dispute  current  traditions, 
unless  when  they  perverted  the  souls  of  men ;  and 
then  He  did  so  unsparingly.  But  He  refused  to  cum- 
ber Himself  with  cares  which  did  not  properly  belong 
to  Him  as  Saviour.  Who  made  me,  He  said,  a  judge 
or  a  divider  over  you  ? 

The  words  of  Christ  do  not  then  foreclose  the 
investigations  of  modern  scholarship.  His  kingdom 
is  not  of  this  world,  and  the  truth  which  He  came  to 
proclaim  is  not  that  of  literary  authorship  or  histori- 
cal fact.  Current  opinions  on  these  things  He  may 
have  accepted,  as  He  spoke  the  current  language  and 
wore  the  current  dress ;  but  they  are  no  part  of  His 
message.  He  denned  His  mission  as  the  proclaiming 
of  good  news  and  the  bringing  of  abundant  life,  and 
He  deliberately  confined  Himself  to  that  mission  as 
thus  conceived.  He  had  the  single  eye.  He  knew 
the  road  on  which  He  must  tread,  and  He  trod  it, 
setting  His  face  steadfastly  and  refusing  to  be  turned 
aside  to  the  right  hand  or  the  left.  In  accordance 
with  His  purely  spiritual  conception  of  His  mission, 
He  cannot  have  desired,  and  He  certainly  did  not 
claim,  to  pronounce  any  final  word  on  literary  or 
historical  problems.  These  remain  to  baffle  and 
stimulate  succeeding  generations  of  scholars,  and  to 
provoke  to  a  more  earnest  study  of  the  Scriptures. 


CHAPTER  IX 
CRITICISM  AND   THE  SUPERNATURAL 

ONE  of  the  heaviest  counts  in  the  indictment 
against  criticism  has  been  its  alleged  attitude  to  the 
supernatural.  Often  criticism  has  ignored  it ;  some- 
times it  has  denied  it ;  usually  it  is  indifferent  to 
it.  So  runs  the  count;  and  where  it  is  true,  it  is 
serious.  For  whatever  we  may  include  under  the 
somewhat  vague  and  subtle  term  "  supernatural,"  it 
has  always  been  felt  to  represent  something  vital  -to 
Christianity.  If  it  goes,  Christianity,  as  a  unique  and 
distinctive  thing,  goes  with  it.  It  becomes  only  one 
of  the  great  religions  of  the  world,  "  nothing  less  and 
nothing  more."  An  attack  upon  the  supernatural 
has  therefore  always  been  felt  to  be  a  blow  aimed  at 
the  heart  of  Christianity,  and  has  been  hotly  resented, 
wherever  Christianity  is  dear. 

It  is  quite  clear  that,  next  to  its  apparent  disregard 
of  the  appeal  to  Christ,  no  part  of  the  issue  raised  by 
the  critical  position  has  thrown  the  opponents  of  crit- 
icism into  so  real  or  profound  an  anxiety.  Echoes  of 
the  distress  come  from  many  lands,  from  Britain  and 
America,  from  Germany  and  France.  Thinkers  who 
differ  widely  in  the  concessions  they  are  prepared  to 
make  to  the  critical  position,  unite  in  opposing,  with 


THE  SUPERNATURAL          231 

all  the  force  they  can,  the  alleged  elimination  of  the 
supernatural  from  the  history  and  literature  of  the 
Hebrews.  On  this  point  the  Rev.  Dr.  John  Smith,  in 
his  "  Integrity  of  Scripture,"  repeatedly  and  emphati- 
cally dwells  :  to  him,  as  to  many,  the  issue  here 
raised  is  one  of  altogether  unique  gravity.  Objection 
is  taken  —  and  rightly,  so  far  as  it  applies  —  to  the 
naturalistic  assumptions  of  the  critics.  The  Old  Tes- 
tament has  been  made  by  criticism  to  fit  "  into  a 
naturalistic  idea  of  human  development"  (p.  32). 
"  The  anxiety  of  the  critics,"  we  are  told,  "  has  been 
to  bring  the  history  into  line  with  a  normal  human 
development"  (p.  183).  The  only  thing  which  the 
critical  reconstruction  justifies  is  a  "  current  view  of 
the  growth  and  progress  of  religions.  .  .  .  The  truth 
is,  the  whole  hypothesis  is  naturalistic"  (p.  282). 
"  Disbelief  in  the  supernatural,"  says  Bishop  Ellicott, 
"  has  had  a  great  deal  to  do  with  the  development  of 
modern  views  of  the  Old  Testament."1  Dr.  Blom- 
field  goes  further,  assuring  us  that  "no  question 
can  reasonably  be  raised  as  to  the  fact  that  the  fons 
et  origo  of  the  disintegration  of  the  Old  Testament 
which  has  been  now  for  so  many  years  attempted,  is 
the  determination  of  a  large  number  of  Continental 
scholars  to  reject  the  whole  of  the  supernatural  ele- 
ment which  its  books  contain  —  with  which,  indeed, 
most  of  them  are  saturated  and  imbued." 2  A  Ger- 
man Roman  Catholic  scholar,  who  is  both  fair  and 
well-informed,  makes  his  charge  in  the  following 
trenchant  words  :  "  Modern  critics  suppose  that  they 

1  "Christus  Comprobator,"  p.  16. 

3  "  The  Old  Testament  and  the  New  Criticism,"  p.  54. 


OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

have  by  their  investigations  won  a  deeper  insight  into 
the  essence  and  growth  of  the  people  and  the  religion 
of  Israel.  The  tendency  which  comes  more  or  less 
clearly  to  light  in  their  restless  scientific  activity  is 
to  let  the  historical  and  religious  development  of  the 
people  of  Israel  appear  as  natural  as  possible.  Many 
investigators  are  remarkably  s"hy  of  everything  super- 
natural :  an  extraordinary  interposition  of  God  in  the 
fortunes  of  His  people  is  inconvenient  for  them.  The 
Almighty  must  keep  His  hand  as  much  as  possible 
out  of  the  game.  The  whole  history  of  the  elect 
people  must  run  a  purely  human  course  and  must  be 
explained  entirely  with  the  natural  light  of  our  under- 
standing. In  a  word,  the  ground-idea  of  the  entire 
modern  criticism  of  the  Bible  is  Evolutionism,  is,  if 
we  may  say  so,  the  transference  of  the  Darwinian 
theor}'  of  evolution  to  the  departments  of  history  and 
religion.  The  higher  critics  seek  to  divest  Holy 
Scripture  entirely  of  its  supernatural  character,  and 
to  set  it  up  as  a  work  of  man."  l  Elsewhere 2  the 
same  scholar  urges  as  a  reason  for  rejecting  criti- 
cism the  fact  that  it  stands  upon  the  ground  of  ra- 
tionalism, and  tends  to  undermine  the  foundations  of 
faith  by  representing  "  everything  supernatural,  all 
supernatural  revelation  of  God,  as  superfluous  and 
impossible." 

It  is  hardly  possible  to  exaggerate  the  importance 
of  the  question,  or  the  gravity  of  the  charge,  so  far 
as  it  is  true.  As  some  one  has  not  unaptly  said,  "  If 
the  supernatural  is  removed  from  the  Bible,  no  Bible 
is  left."  Indeed  no  Christianity  is  left.  If  the  super- 

1  Hopfl,  "Die  hbhere  Bibelkritik,"  p.  12.  2  p.  96. 


THE  SUPERNATURAL  233 

natural  be  denied  on  principle  on  the  ground  of  the 
Old  Testament,  it  will  be  equally  denied  on  the 
ground  of  the  New.  The  criticism  which  does  that 
will  seek  to  rob  Christ  of  His  divinity.  It  will  give 
us  a  Saviour  upon  our  own  level,  and  therefore  one 
who  can  be  no  Saviour  at  all.  Little  wonder  that 
criticism  has  been  despised  and  rejected,  if  it  either 
assumes  or  issues  in  the  denial  of  a  factor  whose 
absence  would  cause  the  fabric  of  the  Christian  reli- 
gion and  experience  to  fall  to  pieces. 

This,  then,  is  the  question  :  Does  criticism  either 
assume  or  issue  in  the  denial  of  this  factor  ?  There 
are  really  two  questions  here,  and  they  must  be  kept 
distinct.  It  is  quite  conceivable  that  criticism  should 
issue  in  the  denial  of  this  factor  ;  but  it  has  no  right 
to  assume  it.  In  so  far  as  it  has  accepted,  as  one  of 
its  a  priori  principles,  the  impossibility  of  the  super- 
natural, it  is  vitiated  from  the  start.  It  stands  self- 
convicted  of  incompetence  to  give  an  unbiassed 
investigation  to  what  we  may  call  miraculous  facts. 
It  rules  them  out  as  impossible,  and  so  merits  the 
condemnation  of  those  who  desire  to  see  fair  play 
given  to  every  order  of  fact.  For  fair  play  is  not 
done  when  facts  are  investigated  from  a  standpoint 
which  makes  only  one  interpretation  of  them  possible. 

The  whole  question  of  the  presuppositions  which 
one  is  justified  in  bringing  to  historical  study  is  a 
thorny  one.  The  ambition  of  a  scientific  mind  should 
be  to  approach  all  such  study  without  prepossessions 
of  any  kind.  There  are  some  who  strive  to  do  so : 
many  who  think  they  can  do  so.  But  is  the  thing 
possible  ?  No  man's  mind  is  a  tabula  rasa  :  every 


OLD   TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

student  brings  himself  to  the  investigation.  The 
mind  which  he  uses  may  indeed  be  working  for  the 
first  time  upon  this  particular  department  or  problem  ; 
but  it  has  already  worked  upon  other  problems,  and 
has  been  shaped  and  determined  by  that  work,  and  by 
all  the  mental  and  spiritual  experience  of  the  man,  in 
very  special  directions.  To  one  who  can  point  to  an 
apparently  sudden  transition  in  his  spiritual  experi- 
ence, nothing  will  be  impossible :  a  divine  power  has 
convulsed  and  regenerated  his  life,  and  he  will  laugh 
at  a  theory  which  denies  the  possibility  of  divine  inter- 
position.1 To  the  man,  on  the  other  hand,  who  has 
spent  his  years  in  the  laboratory  or  in  some  scientific 
study,  which  has  steadily  and  surely  impressed  upon 
him  the  unvarying  sequences  of  cause  and  effect,  and 
what  he  can  only  call  the  inexorableness  of  law,  mira- 
cle will  seem  so  remotely  possible  that  its  possibility 
is  hardly  worth  considering :  every  day  of  study 
deepens  its  improbability  till  it  may  pass,  in  his  mind, 
into  a  practical  impossibility.  Both  types  of  men  are 
determined,  and  inevitably  determined,  by  their  experi- 
ence. Study,  disposition,  temperament,  experience, 
have  much  to  do  with  a  man's  general  mental  atti- 
tude. It  is  a  familiar  fact  that  deepening  experi- 
ence and  wider  study  may  lead  him  conscientiously  to 
doubt  what  he  once  believed  with  all  his  soul,  or  con- 
versely, to  believe  what  once  he  doubted.  Every  day 
the  mind  is  being  determined  by  the  subtlest  influ- 
ences. There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  perfectly  open 
mind.  There  may  be  the  passion  for  truth,  and  the 
desire  to  be  fair ;  but  the  mind  is  already,  by  its  pre- 

1  We  are  using  these  words  in  the  popular  sense. 


THE   SUPERNATURAL 

vious  history  and  growth,  predisposed  to  one  view  of 
the  facts  rather  than  another. 

To  approach  a  study  without  prejudice  or  pre- 
possession of  some  kind  is  impossible.  But  it  is  one 
thing  to  have  a  prepossession,  conscious  or  uncon- 
scious ;  it  is  another  thing  to  have  a  fixed  opinion. 
And  it  is  a  mere  mockery  of  scientific  method  to  bring 
to  the  investigation  a  definite  opinion  which  prejudges 
some  of  the  most  important  problems  that  will  emerge 
in  the  course  of  it.  We  cannot  bring  a  tabula  rasa  ; 
but  neither  ought  we,  in  fairness,  to  settle  in  advance 
what  we  are  pretending  to  examine.  Any  man  gives 
away  his  case  as  an  impartial  historian  of  the  facts 
who  says,  as  Renan  did,  "It  is  because  they  relate 
miracles  that  I  say  the  Gospels  are  legends."  No 
historian  has  any  right  to  approach  his  task  with  the 
assumption  that  the  miraculous  is  necessarily  unhis- 
torical,  and  that  it  is  his  business  to  eliminate  it  or 
explain  it  away.  Whether  it  is,  in  reality,  historical 
or  not,  will  of  course  depend  on  many  considerations, 
-  partly  on  the  credibility  of  the  witnesses  to  it, 
partly  on  their  nearness  to  the  incident  recorded,  and 
so  on.  The  historian  is  justified  in  demanding  more 
testimony  to  a  miraculous  event  than  he  would  to  an 
ordinary  one.  But  he  is  not  justified  in  rejecting  it 
simply  because  it  does  not  happen  to  fit  into  his  view 
of  the  world.  He  can  only  rightly  do  so  if  he  first 
successfully  vindicate  that  view ;  and  in  so  doing  he 
will  have  to  leave  the  field  of  the  historian  for  that 
of  the  philosopher.  Besides,  any  view,  to  be  valid, 
would  have  to  rest  on  an  induction  of  all  the  relevant 
facts ;  and  this  very  fact  which  he  rejects  may  be  one 


236     OLD   TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

which,  if  given  its  proper  and  natural  weight,  would 
seriously  modify  his  view.  True  science  reckons,  so 
far  as  it  may,  with  objective  facts.  To  condemn  the 
miraculous  in  advance  as  impossible,  is  as  unscientific 
as  it  is  unfair.  The  critic  has  a  right  to  demand  from 
his  opponent  that  he  do  not  approach  the  Bible  with 
a  dogmatic  bias.  His  opponent  has  an  equal  right 
to  demand  of  him  that  he  do  not  prejudge  the  case  by 
an  anti-supernaturalistic  bias. 

A  criticism  which  on  a  priori  grounds  rejects  the 
miraculous  is  itself  to  be  rejected.  But  when  we  ask 
whether  this  attitude  to  the  supernatural  is  a  univer- 
sal and  necessary  feature  of  higher  criticism,  we  must 
answer  with  an  emphatic  negative.  It  has  indeed 
been  a  too  familiar  feature  of  criticism,  but  it  is 
neither  inevitable  nor  universal.  The  tendency  of  the 
opponents  of  criticism  has  been  too  much  to  identify 
the  whole  movement  with  the  principles  and  results 
of  Kuenen  and  Wellhausen.  Considering  the  very 
eminent  services  which  both  these  scholars  have 
rendered  to  the  cause  of  Old  Testament  study,  this 
tendency  is  explicable.  These  men,  whose  ability 
and  learning  —  whatever  we  may  think  of  their  con- 
clusions—  are  beyond  all  question,  have,  in  a  sense, 
been  the  pioneers  of  the  movement,  in  its  more  modern 
phase.  They  have  given  an  extraordinary  impetus 
to  the  study  of  the  problems,  which  even  those  who 
differ  from  them  have  not  always  been  reluctant  to 
acknowledge.  However  much  their  results  may  be 
modified  —  and  they  are  being  modified  —  their  in- 
fluence has  been  stupendous.  But  it  must  be  strenu- 
ously maintained  that  the  movement  does  not  stand 


THE    SUPERNATURAL          237 

or  fall  with  them.  Pioneers  often  take  extreme  posi- 
tions which  are  seriously  modified  in  the  clash  of 
subsequent  discussion.  We  have  already  seen  that  a 
reactionary  movement  has  begun,  which  finds  its  most 
brilliant  and  outspoken  representative  in  Gunkel, 
and  which,  though  confessing  its  profound  indebted- 
ness to  Wellhausen,  is  yet  more  conservative  in 
its  tendency,  and  reserves  for  an  early,  sometimes 
a  very  early,  period  much  that  he  had  relegated  to 
the  time  of  the  monarchy.  This  statement  holds  good 
also  of  other  aspects  of  the  subject.  Very  relevant 
to  our  present  purpose  is  the  confession  of  Professor 
Meinhold,  who  had  been  reproached  by  his  opponents 
for  his  dependence  on  Wellhausen.1  "Well  I  know" 
he  says,  "what  separates  me  from  him;  namely,  the 
accentuation  of  the  supernatural  moment  in  the  history 
of  Israel  and  its  prophetism.  That  is  assuredly  not 
a  subordinate  point.  But  at  the  same  time,  the  grati- 
tude with  which  I  regard  this  scholar,  I  shall  the  less 
forget,  as  many  who,  like  myself,  are  indebted  to  him, 
hold  it  proper  to  accentuate  rather  that  which  separates 
them  than  that  which  they  have  received  from  him. 
.  .  .  One  may  be  an  opponent  of  Wellhausen's,"  •  he 
warmly  remarks  later  on,  "  and  at  the  same  time 
be  far  enough  from  Christianity.  One  may  be  an 
adherent  of  his,  and  yet  with  glad  heart  confess  his 
allegiance  to  the  religion  of  revelation.  Many  of  my 
colleagues  do  this  in  common  with  myself.  We 
accuse  any  one  of  falsehood  who  maintains  the  con- 
trary of  us."  What  Meinhold  maintains  with  some 
vehemence  is  precisely  that,  the  possibility  of  which 
is  denied  by  most  of  the  opponents  of  criticism. 

i  "Jesus  und  das  Alte  Testament,"  p.  xviii.    The  italics  are  ours. 


238     OLD    TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

But  this  is  surely  a  matter  in  which  each  man  is 
his  own  best  judge.  Each  man  knows  whether  he 
believes  in  and  accentuates  the  supernatural  factor  in 
Israel's  history  and  religion  or  not;  and  if  he  says 
he  does,  are  we  not  to  take  him  at  his  word  ?  There 
is  perhaps  no  point  of  similar  gravity  on  which  the 
critics  have  received  less  justice  than  this.  Their 
deliberate  and  solemn  confessions  have  been  repeatedly 
ignored  or  explained  away ;  and,  considering  the  im- 
portance of  the  supernatural  to  the  Christian  religion, 
this  is  the  point  on  which  they  have  been  most  grieved 
to  be  misunderstood.  "  It  is  necessary  to  distinguish," 
says  a  French  scholar,  "  between  the  naturalistic 
interpretation  which  Kuenen  and  Wellhausen  have 
given  to  the  history  of  Israel,  and  that  history  as  it 
manifests  itself  to  the  unprejudiced  observer  who 
accepts,  in  the  matter  of  purely  literary  criticism,  the 
general  conclusions  of  these  scholars." l  The  prin- 
ciple of  the  development  of  the  history  of  Israel,  he 
affirms,  must  always  be  sought  outside  of  its  apparent 
causes,  which  are  insufficient  to  explain  it.  It  is 
therefore  supernatural. 

This  last  quotation  strikes  the  key-note  of  the  dis- 
tinction to  be  found  within  the  ranks  of  the  critics 
themselves.  One  may  accept  the  general  methods 
and  conclusions  of  the  criticism  of  Wellhausen  and 
Kuenen,  in  so  far  as  it  is  purely  literary,  without  com- 
mitting one's  self  to  all  of  their  historical  conclusions. 
For  it  must  be  remembered  that  their  historical  con- 
clusions do  not  all  represent  the  inevitable  issue  of 
their  literary  conclusions.  Those  which  have  given 

1  Loisy,  "  Etudes  Bibliques,"  p.  89. 


THE    SUPERNATURAL          239 

most  offence  nearly  all  rest  upon  an  unproved  philo- 
sophical assumption.  A  man  may  be  a  believer  in 
revelation  and  the  supernatural,  whatever  view  he 
may  hold  of  the  date  and  literary  origin  of  the  Pen- 
tateuch. Whether  it  is  a  unit  or  composite,  whether 
it  be  composed  by  the  great  lawgiver  or  by  members 
of  prophetic  and  priestly  guilds,  whether  it  belongs 
to  the  thirteenth  century  B.  c.  or  in  the  main  to  the 
eighth  century,  it  contains  an  account  of  certain  facts. 
Obviously  no  view  of  the  date  or  authorship  can  affect 
the  quality  of  these  facts  —  considered,  that  is,  as 
objective  facts,  apart  from  the  record  of  them.  If 
these  facts  are  miraculous,  using  the  word  in  its  pop- 
ular acceptation,  they  do  not  become  less  so  because 
the  record  of  them  comes  from  a  period  five  centuries 
later  than  we  supposed  it  did.  We  are  not  here 
speaking  of  the  conceivable  modifications  which  a 
tradition  may  have  undergone  in  the  course  of  that 
time.  That  is  a  question  by  itself,  and  not  an  easy 
one.  But  in  any  case,  tradition,  however  it  might 
work  upon  an  epoch-making  fact,  such  as  the  Exodus, 
could  not  obliterate  it.  Again,  some  of  the  greatest 
facts  were  enshrined  in  almost  contemporary  song, 
and  thus  were  carried  safely  across  the  centuries. 
Assuming  then  the  recorded  facts  to  be  facts,  whatever 
be  the  medium  of  their  preservation,  whether  tradi- 
tion, song,  or  some  visible  and  material  memorial, 
they  remain,  as  objective  things,  unaffected  by  the 
problems  that  gather  round  the  literary  record.  They 
would  so  remain,  even  were  there  no  literary  record ; 
and  the  compositeness  of  the  Hexateuch  may  enable 
us,  as  we  saw,  to  adduce  several  witnesses  to  a  fact 


24o     OLD    TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

where,  on  the  theory  of  its  unity,  we  have  only  one. 
No  decision  within  the  sphere  of  the  purely  literary 
problems  can  evaporate  historical  facts  or  eliminate 
the  supernatural  from  facts  which  cannot  be  ex- 
plained as  the  result  of  purely  natural  forces. 

This  is  an  elementary  point,  but  it  cannot  be  too 
earnestly  emphasized,  that  literary  criticism  is  one 
thing,  historical  criticism  another ;  and  that  the  ac- 
ceptance of  the  general  methods  and  results  of  literary 
criticism  does  not  bind  a  man  to  one  view  of  the 
history  more  than  another.  It  furnishes  him  with 
the  record  of  certain  facts :  how  he  will  arrange  and 
interpret  these  facts  will  depend  upon  altogether  dif- 
ferent considerations.  If  he  be  predisposed,  either 
through  philosophic  or  scientific  study  or  by  the  nat- 
ural bent  of  his  mind,  to  deny  the  supernatural,  then 
he  will  do  his  best  to  put  a  natural  construction  on 
those  facts.  Where  this  is  difficult,  he  may  attribute 
the  difficulty  to  the  slenderness  of  our  information. 
He  may  stop  gaps  by  conjectures,  and  indulge  gener- 
ally in  feats  of  the  historical  imagination.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  he  be  not  predisposed  against  the  super- 
natural, if  he  believe  in  the  power  of  God  to  interpose 
in  the  interests  of  a  great  purpose,  he  will  let  the  facts 
which  are  most  adequately  explained  in  that  way,  and 
which  were  interpreted  in  that  way  by  those  who  were 
specially  called  to  read  the  divine  meaning  of  the  past, 
make  their  own  impression  upon  him.  He  will  not 
depreciate  the  supernatural  as  impossible,  if  it  be 
sufficiently  attested  ;  he  will  rather  welcome  it  as  a 
proof  that  God  is  Lord.  But  in  either  case  the  liter- 
ary and  the  historical  questions  must  be  kept  strictly 


THE    SUPERNATURAL          241 

apart.  They  are  closely  connected,  no  doubt.  Lit- 
erature, in  the  largest  sense,  supplies  the  material  for 
the  historian ;  but  literary  criticism  does  not  supply 
principles  for  the  interpretation  of  that  material. 
The  literary  criticism  of  the  Pentateuch  would  not 
have  to  be  modified  in  the  smallest  detail  if  the  exist- 
ence of  the  supernatural  were  placed  beyond  all  con- 
troversy. Literary  analysis  does  not  depend  on  the 
denial  of  the  supernatural.  It  rests  upon  the  obser- 
vation of  literary  phenomena ;  and  its  main  results 
are  accepted,  as  we  saw,  by  many  who  are  opposed,  in 
general,  to  the  modern  critical  position.  The  cry, 
then,  that  criticism  is  an  open  or  covert  attack  upon 
the  supernatural  is  not  justified  by  the  facts.  Of  some 
critics,  it  is  true ;  of  many  others,  and  especially  of 
more  recent  critics,  it  is  false,  and  emphatically  re- 
pudiated by  their  own  express  testimony. 

Throughout  the  discussion  we  have  been  using  the 
terms  "  natural "  and  "  supernatural  "  in  a  somewhat 
loose  and  popular  way,  as  it  was  no  part  of  our  design 
to  deal  with  the  question  philosophically,  but  simply 
to  discuss  the  relation  of  criticism  to  the  supernatural, 
as  popularly  understood.  But  such  terms  are,  in  the 
very  nature  of  the  case,  relative.  We  know  too  little 
of  either  to  be  able  to  delimit  incidents  by  so  simple 
and  convenient  a  nomenclature.  A  distinguished  the- 
ologian has  said,  "  I  utterly  deny  that  God's  action 
can  be  correctly  described  as  miraculous ;  it  is  natu- 
ral." God  is  not  arbitrary.  He  must  have  a  purpose, 
He  cannot  deny  Himself ;  and  therefore  His  action 
must  be  always  essentially  self-consistent,  however  it 
may  seem  to  us,  who  have  not  the  key  to  it. 

16 


242     OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

But  though  the  opponents  of  criticism  have  been 
justified  —  though  by  no  means  as  against  all  criti- 
cism—  in  their  emphasis  on  the  supernatural,  they 
have  not  been  justified  in  supposing,  as  they  have 
sometimes  done,  that  those  who  deny  the  supernatu- 
ral, as  commonly  understood,  in  history,  therefore 
deny  the  divine  in  it.  To  see  the  divine  merely  in  the 
so-called  supernatural  is  to  run  a  grave  risk  of  ignor- 
ing it,  or  doing  less  than  justice  to  it,  in  the  ordinary 
flow  and  sequences  of  history.  We  must  see  it  as 
that  power,  if  we  may  modify  the  lines  of  Tennyson, 

"  Which  makes  the  darkness  and  the  light, 
And  dwells  not  in  the  dark  alone." 

We  cannot  afford  to  find  God  merely  in  the  gaps,  and 
to  call  Him  in  as  a  deus  ex  machina,  to  unravel  tangled 
knots,  or  to  perform  acts  that  are  too  difficult  for  the 
so-called  natural  factors.  He  must  be  in  all,  and 
through  all,  as  well  as  over  all.  And  many  men  who 
believe  that  there  is  everywhere  throughout  the  uni- 
verse inexorable  law  and  the  unbroken  sequences  of 
causation,  yet  find  in  this  majestic  order  the  reflex 
of  Him  who  is  without  variableness,  or  shadow  cast 
by  turning ;  and  many  such  men  have  confessed  that 
the  universe,  as  thus  interpreted,  presents  to  them  a 
spectacle  of  nobler  and  more  mysterious  majesty  than 
would  a  universe  whose  God  appeared  only  fitfully  and 
in  corners.  However  this  may  be,  we  are  not  justi- 
fied in  setting  a  man  down  as  an  atheist  who  disbe- 
lieves in  miracle.  The  ordinary  may  be  to  him  as 
divine,  as,  to  another  man,  the  inexplicable  and  the 
extraordinary.  The  saintly  William  Law  has  put 


THE   SUPERNATURAL  243 

this  truth  with  his  customary  lucidity :  "  Could  we 
see  a  miracle  from  God,  how  would  our  thoughts  be 
affected  with  an  holy  awe  and  veneration  of  His 
presence !  But  if  we  consider  everything  as  God's 
doing,  either  by  order  or  permission,  we  shall  then  be 
affected  by  common  things,  as  they  would  be  who  saw 
a  miracle.  For  as  there  is  nothing  to  affect  you  in  a 
miracle,  but  as  it  is  the  action  of  God,  and  bespeaks 
His  presence ;  so  when  you  consider  God  as  acting  in 
all  things,  and  all  events,  then  all  things  will  become 
venerable  to  you,  like  miracles,  and  fill  you  with  the 
same  awful  sentiments  of  the  Divine  presence." l 

The  argument  from  Messianic  prophecy  has  often 
been  vitiated  by  this  exaggerated  attention  to  details, 
and  comparative  inattention  to  the  whole  scope  and 
spirit  of  the  older  dispensation  which,  by  what  it 
lacked  as  well  as  by  what  it  promised,  pointed  to 
Christ.  The  older  argument  revolved  for  the  most 
part  round  a  limited  number  of  Old  Testament  texts, 
most  of  which  have  no  warrant  for  their  Christological 
application  in  the  New  Testament,  least  of  all  in  the 
words  of  Christ  Himself.  We  have  already  seen  how 
large  and  noble  is  the  Messianic  argument  offered  by 
Christ.  He  claims  to  fulfil  the  law  and  the  prophets  ; 
He  shows  His  disciples  out  of  the  Old  Testament  things 
concerning  Himself.  Yet  He  hardly  ever  calls  atten- 
tion to  the  particular  texts  which  have  for  ages  been 
the  stock-in-trade  of  the  Messianic  argument.  His 
Father  was  working  hitherto,  guiding  not  only  this 
utterance  and  that,  but  the  whole  history  towards  its 
fulfilment  in  Himself.  In  the  law  and  the  prophets, 
*  "  Serious  Call,"  ch.  22,  towards  the  end. 


244     OLD    TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

not  merely  in  stray  verses  and  isolated  sections,  He 
found  the  promise  and  prophecy  of  Himself.  "  It 
would  be  an  ignoratio  elenchi"  as  'Professor  Charles 
happily  says,  "  to  press  the  fulfilment  of  special  pre- 
dictions as  proofs  of  the  Divine  guidance  of  events, 
where  we  regard  the  whole  movement  as  Divine."  J 

Certainly  it  is  not  from  the  Bible  that  men  have 
learned  to  elevate  the  supernatural  at  the  expense  of 
the  natural.  True,  God  is  Almighty  :  is  anything  too 
wonderful  for  Jehovah  ?  2  But  His  presence  and  power 
are  revealed  as  much  in  the  sustained  order  of  the 
world  as  by  the  breaches  of  that  order.  The  very 
same  Hebrew  word  for  "  wonderful  "  as  occurs  in  the 
passage  just  quoted  is  used  by  the  author  of  the  great 
lyric  on  the  omnipresence  of  God  to  describe  the 
marvel  of  God's  nearness  to  him  in  the  common  life 
of  every  day  (Ps.  cxxxix.  6).  Meteors  have  their 
place ;  but  even  without  them  the  heavens  would  de- 
clare the  glory  of  God.  The  unbroken  procession  of 
day  and  night  offers  its  endless  testimony. 

Day  unto  day  is  a  well-spring  of  speech, 

And  night  unto  night  a  revealer  of  knowledge.8 

Another  psalmist  was  moved  to  wonder,  when  he  con- 
sidered the  heavens,  the  work  of  God's  ringer,  the 
moon  and  the  stars  which  He  had  established.  He  is 
the  God  of  the  calm,  as  well  as  of  the  storm  ;  the  au- 
thor of  peace,  as  well  as  of  confusion.  The  Flood  mani- 
fested His  power ;  but  it  was  equally  manifested  by 
the  order  that  followed.  While  the  earth  remaineth, 

1  "Expositor,"  April,  1902,  pp.  249,  250. 

2  Gen.  xviii.  14.  3  Ps.  xix.  2. 


THE   SUPERNATURAL          145 

seedtime  and  harvest,  and  cold  and  heat,  and  summer 
and  winter,  and  day  and  night  shall  not  cease. 

But  it  is  not  enough  to  say  that  criticism  does  not 
deny  the  supernatural ;  it  has  a  positive  contribution 
to  offer.  By  laying  bare  the  facts,  it  has  forced  us  to 
feel  how  marvellous  those  facts  are.  The  older  apolo- 
getic emphasized  the  supernatural  in  detailed  incident; 
the  results  of  criticism,  while  not  ignoring  this,  sug- 
gest its  presence  rather  throughout  the  long  develop- 
ment of  the  history  and  the  religion.  Even  if  objection 
were  successfully  taken  to  much  of  the  detail  which  it 
has  always  been  the  custom  to  regard  as  miraculous, 
the  history  and  the  religion  would  remain  unique 
and  undeniable  facts.  No  one  who  has  but  the  faintest 
smattering  of  history  or  the  most  rudimentary  knowl- 
edge of  the  times  in  which  he  lives,  will  dispute  the 
uniqueness  of  the  Jewish  people  ;  and  that  uniqueness 
is  due  to  the  uniqueness  of  their  early  discipline  and 
experience  as  a  nation.  And  their  religion  is  as  ex- 
traordinary as  their  history.  The  religion  developed 
as  the  history  advanced.  But  how  did  it  develop  ?  and 
why  did  it  develop  in  Israel  along  lines  which  find  a 
parallel  nowhere  else  ?  How  did  Israel  attain  her 
pure  and  noble  thoughts  of  God,  related  as  she  was  by 
blood  and  language,  by  custom  and  institution,  by 
trade  and  travel,  to  peoples  whose  worship  of  God 
was  at  once  cruel  and  licentious  ?  There  is  the  real 
miracle  of  Israel's  religion,  and  no  amount  of  petty 
criticism  of  detail  can  overthrow  the  solid  fact  of 
Israel's  separateness  among  the  peoples  of  the  world. 
She  was  in  the  world,  yet  not  of  it ;  at  least  we  may 
say  this  of  the  "  Israel  indeed  "  —  the  elect  men  who 


246     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

represent  Israel  before  the  world ;  for  the  mass  of  the 
people,  as  the  prophets  often  and  bitterly  complain, 
were  really  no  better  than  the  peoples  by  whom  they 
were  surrounded.  The  religion  of  Israel,  with  every 
temptation  to  be  absorbed  by  or  assimilated  to  the  re- 
ligions of  the  cognate  peoples,  not  only  resisted  them, 
but  outlived  them,  and,  in  the  completeness  which  was 
given  to  it  by  and  in  Christ,  is  substantially  the  reli- 
gion of  the  progressive  nations  of  the  world  to-day, 
and  the  only  religion  which  can,  with  any  reasonable- 
ness, aspire  to  be  the  universal  religion  of  humanity. 
We  still  think  of  God  largely  in  the  language  of  the 
prophets,  and  pray  to  Him  in  the  language  of  the 
Psalms. 

Is  the  undeniable  uniqueness  of  this  strange  people 
an  accident  ?  No  one  will  believe  that  who  believes 
that  there  is  a  purpose  in  history.  And  if  there  be 
such  a  purpose,  then  this  people  was  chosen,  as  it  felt 
itself  to  be,  to  contribute,  in  some  high  and  special 
way,  to  its  fulfilment.  It  was  not  for  nothing,  or  for 
reasons  that  were  selfish,  that  they  prayed  the  God  who 
had  chosen  them  to  be  merciful  to  them,  and  bless 
them,  and  cause  His  face  to  shine  upon  them  :  it  was 
that  His  way  might  be  known  upon  earth,  and  His 
salvation  among  all  nations  (Ps.  Ixvii.).  They  felt 
that  they  had  a  cosmic  function,  and  they  responded 
with  intelligence  and  enthusiasm  to  the  largeness  of 
their  destiny.  History  has  confirmed  the  stupendous 
claims  of  Israel.  She  did  not  misread  her  mission  in 
aspiring  to  bring  all  the  round  world  to  a  knowledge 
of  the  living  God. 

But  who  are  these,  and  whence  came  they  —  these 


THE   SUPERNATURAL          247 

whose  message  is  so  profound,  original,  and  divine  ? 
We  know  whence  they  did  not  come :  the  science  of  com- 
parative religion  has  made  that  plain  enough.  Where 
to-day  are  Zeus  and  Poseidon  and  Hephaestus  ? 
Where  are  Chemosh  and  Milcom  and  Melkart  ?  Their 
very  names  are  forgotten  by  almost  all  but  the  learned, 
and  with  the  gods  are  perished  the  religions  under 
whose  sanction  they  were  worshipped.  Who  is  a  god 
like  unto  Israel's  God  ?  And  how  does  it  come  that 
the  God  of  this  one  little  people  lived  on  —  a  people 
which  had  little  science  and  less  art,  a  people  whose 
land  for  centuries  formed  but  a  tiny  and  insignificant 
province  of  the  great  empires  to  which  it  was  in  turn 
compelled  to  give  allegiance  ?  The  reign  of  this 
particular  God  was  destined  to  be  universal,  because 
He  was  a  moral  God,  and  morality  is  universal.  But 
why  precisely  in  that  land  did  thoughts  of  such  a 
God  arise  ?  This  is  the  real  problem  of  Israel's 
history  :  how  are  we  to  account  for  that  which  differ- 
entiates her  from  the  sister  peoples  ? 

How  certainly  Israel  would  have  gone  the  same  way 
as  they  did.  had  she  been  left  to  her  own  devices,  we 
shall  see,  if  we  remember  how  very  much  she  had  in 
common  with  them.  The  language  of  the  Moabite 
stone,1  with  its  startling  resemblance  to  that  of  the 
Old  Testament,  perhaps  reveals  this  as  simply  and 

1  A  monument  erected  by  the  king  of  Moab  (2  Kings  iii.  4)  about 
850  B.  c.  to  commemorate  his  victories  over  Israel.  It  was  discovered 
in  1868,  and  it  is  of  great  linguistic  interest  and  some  historical  impor- 
tance. Text  and  translation  are  easily  accessible  to  English  readers  in 
Hastings' "  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,"  vol.  iii.  pp.  404-408,  and  in  Driver's 
"  Notes  on  the  Hebrew  Text  of  Samuel,"  pp.  Ixxxv-xciv.  There  is 
also  a  translation  in  G.  W.  Wade's  "  Old  Testament  History,"  pp.  514, 
515. 


248     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

graphically  as  anything  else  would  do.  A  few  of  the 
more  illustrative  sentences  will  make  the  point  clear. 
"I  [that  is,  Mesha,  king  of  Moab]  made  this  high 
place  for  Chemosh  .  .  .  because  he  caused  me  to  see 
my  desire  upon  all  them  that  hated  me.  .  .  .  Omri 
was  king  over  Israel,  and  he  afflicted  Moab  for  many 
days,  because  Chemosh  was  angry  with  his  land. 
And  his  son  succeeded  him,  and  he  also  said,  I  will 
afflict  Moab.  .  .  .  But  I  saw  my  desire  upon  him  and 
upon  his  house,  and  Israel  perished  with  an  everlast- 
ing destruction.  Now  Omri  took  possession  of  the 
land  of  Medeba,  and  [Israel]  dwelt  therein  during  his 
days  and  half  his  son's  days,  forty  years  :  but  Che- 
mosh restored  it  in  my  days.  .  .  .  And  the  men  of 
Gad  had  dwelt  in  the  land  of  Ataroth  from  of  old, 
and  the  king  of  Israel  built  for  himself  Ataroth. 
And  I  fought  against  the  city  and  took  it ;  and  I  slew 
all  the  [people  of]  the  city,  a  spectacle  for  Chemosh 
and  for  Moab.  .  .  .  And  Chemosh  said  to  me,  Go, 
take  Nebo  against  Israel.  And  I  went  by  night  and 
fought  against  it  from  the  break  of  dawn  till  noon, 
and  I  took  it,  and  slew  the  whole  of  it,  seven  thousand 
men  and  .  .  .  women,  and  .  .  .  maidservants ;  for  I 
had  devoted  it  to  Ashtor-Chemosh.  And  I  took 
thence  the  [vessels]  of  Jehovah,  and  I  [dragged?] 
them  before  Chemosh.  And  the  king  of  Israel  had 
built  Jahaz,  and  he  abode  in  it  while  he  fought  against 
me.  But  Chemosh  drove  him  out  from  before  me. 
And  I  took  of  Moab  two  hundred  men,  all  its  chiefs, 
and  I  led  them  against  Jahaz,  and  took  it.  ...  Che- 
mosh said  unto  me,  Go  down  and  fight  against  Horo- 
naim,  and  I  went  down.  .  .  ." 


THE   SUPERNATURAL          249 

It  is  not  merely  that  the  language  of  this  Moabite 
inscription  is  so  like  Hebrew  as  to  be,  in  the  main, 
quite  intelligible  to  the  student  of  ordinary  Hebrew- 
historical  prose  ;  but  the  religious  ideas  and  usages 
attested  by  the  inscription  are  no  less  remarkable 
for  their  resemblance  to  much  that  is  to  be  found  in 
the  Old  Testament  than  the  phraseology  itself.  If 
for  Chemosh  the  god  of  Moab  we  were  to  substitute 
Jehovah  the  God  of  Israel,  we  might  almost  mistake 
the  inscription  for  a  chapter  of  Joshua  or  Judges. 
Chemosh  has  high  places  just  as  Jehovah  has,  and 
they  have  the  same  name.  He  saves  from  the  oppres- 
sor those  who  trust  in  him,  just  as  Jehovah  does.  He 
lets  the  king  see  his  desire  on  all  his  enemies,  just 
as  Jehovah  does.  He  can  be  angry  with  his  land,  as 
Jehovah  with  His  land  ;  and  his  anger  is  similarly 
shown  in  the  devastation  of  the  land  by  its  enemies. 
He  too,  like  Jehovah,  restores  the  land  when  his 
anger  is  turned.  His  oracle,  like  Jehovah's,  com- 
mands and  inspires  an  attack  upon  the  enemy.  He, 
like  Jehovah,  drives  out  the  enemy  from  before  his 
people ;  and  so  on.  Here  we  see,  within  the  com- 
pass of  a  few  lines,  unmistakable  testimony  to  a 
phenomenon  familiar  to  the  student  of  the  Semitic 
peoples  —  the  remarkable  agreement  of  their  lan- 
guages, ideas,  practices,  and  rituals. 

It  is  precisely  this  remarkable  agreement  between 
Israel  and  the  sister  peoples  that  compels  us  to  face, 
and  if  possible  to  account  for,  the  still  more  remark- 
able difference  between  her  and  them.1  Almost  all 

1  How  profoundly  the  Hebrews  were  affected  —  directly  and  indi- 
rectly —  by  the  institutions  of  the  dominant  Semitic  peoples  has  never 


250     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

the  factors  in  her  development  were  matched  by  those 
of  her  neighbors.  If  the  ultimate  difference  was  so 
extraordinary  —  her  religion  has  lived,  while  theirs 
has  been  dead  for  centuries  —  must  it  not  have  been 
due  to  the  presence  and  influence  of  another  factor  ? 
As  Bredenkamp  puts  it :  "  The  principle  of  natural 
development  is  insufficient  to  explain  the  history  of 
Israel.  The  uniqueness  of  the  Old  Testament  religion 
demands  the  uniqueness  of  her  history.  As  long  as 
we  must  recognize  the  distinction  in  principle  between 
the  Old  Testament  religion  and  all  heathen  religions, 
so  long  shall  we  be  unable  to  measure  sacred  history 
with  the  measures  of  profane  history."  l  Without 
endorsing  this  use  of  the  words  sacred  and  profane, 
we  yet  cannot  help  admitting  the  force  of  the  argu- 
ment. The  history  of  Israel  must  remain  a  riddle  to 
all  who  refuse  to  acknowledge  the  power  of  God  to 
intervene  in  history.  Scholars  may  differ  as  to  when 
that  which  was  distinctive  of  Israel's  religion  first 
came  to  be.  The  Old  Testament  itself  ascribes  it  to 
Moses ;  much  recent  scholarship  has  been  inclined  to 
give  the  honor  to  the  literary  prophets  of  the  eighth 
century  B.  c.,  though  there  are  not  wanting  signs  that 
this  conclusion  will  have  to  be  seriously  modified,  and 
modified,  too,  in  the  direction  of  the  traditional  belief 
which  sees  in  Moses  the  real  founder  of  Israel's  re- 
received  more  striking  illustration  than  in  the  recently  discovered  code 
of  Hammurabi  (2250  B.  c.),  which  furnishes  many  striking  parallels  to 
Biblical  laws.  Here  again,  however,  the  differences  are  equally  strik- 
ing. "No  one  can  fail  to  recognize  the  higher  moral  standards  re- 
flected in  the  Old  Testament  laws  "  (Professor  Kent,  in  the  "  Biblical 
World,"  March,  1903,  p.  189). 

l  "  Gesetz  und  Propheten,"  p.  11. 


THE    SUPERNATURAL          251 

ligion,  not  only  in  a  national,  but  in  a  distinctively 
ethical  sense.  But  however  that  question  may  be  dis- 
puted, there  is  no  dispute  about  this,  that  the  religion 
of  Israel  is,  in  point  of  fact,  distinctive  :  it  has  some- 
thing which  the  others  had  not.  Where  did  that 
something  come  from  ? 

To  say  that  it  is  due  to  the  influence  of  command- 
ing personalities  is  simply  to  shift,  not  to  solve,  the 
difficulty.  It  pushes  the  problem  only  a  step  further 
back.  Moses,  Nathan,  Elijah,  Amos  —  wherever  the 
distinctive  thing  began,  that  which  made  Israel's  re- 
ligion different  from  that  of  Moab  and  Ammon  and 
all  competing  religions,  it  began  somewhere,  and  not 
only  began,  but  was  maintained,  under  conditions  any- 
thing but  promising,  by  a  succession  of  like-minded 
men.  Personality  is  the  profoundest  of  all  secrets ; 
to  waive  it  aside  as  itself  a  natural  stage  in  a  natural 
development  is  to  beg  the  whole  question  at  issue. 
When  personalities  of  a  particular  kind  appear  only 
on  a  special  soil,  and  that  under  conditions  which  do 
not  adequately  explain  them,  and  which  are  unable  to 
produce  similar  personalities  on  similar  soil,  we  are 
entitled,  to  assume  that  so  unique  a  phenomenon 
demands  a  unique  explanation.1  In  other  words, 
natural  development  is  insufficient  to  explain  the 
acknowledged  distinctiveness  of  Israel's  religion. 

1  "  That  revealed  religion  is  revealed,  and  is  not  the  product  of 
human  genius,  despite  the  gradual  unfolding  of  that  religion,  and  the 
coherence  of  its  parts,  becomes  increasingly  evident,  the  more  thor- 
oughly its  characteristics  are  appreciated.  Its  unique  character  finds 
no  satisfactory  explanation  in  the  native  tendencies  of  the  Semitic  race. 
History  belies  such  a  naturalistic  solution."  Fisher,  "Nature  and 
Method  of  Revelation,"  p.  50. 


252     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

Without,  then,  entering  into  detailed  discussion  of 
miraculous  incidents,  to  some  of  which,  on  various 
grounds,  exception  has  occasionally  been  taken,  the 
great  and  indisputable  fact  of  the  uniqueness  of  Is- 
rael's religion  furnishes  us  with  a  potent  argument 
for  the  presence  within  it,  or  influence  upon  it,  of  the 
supernatural. 

This  argument,  be  it  noted,  is  as  valid  on  the  criti- 
cal view  of  the  Old  Testament  as  on  the  traditional. 
The  uniqueness  of  Israel's  religion  is  not  essentially 
affected  by  the  critical  reconstruction  of  the  history. 
Whether  the  prophets  precede  the  law,  or  the  law  the 
prophets,  there  was  a  law  and  there  was  a  prophecy : 
a  law  which  purified  much  that  was  offensive,  miti- 
gated much  that  was  harsh,  and  spiritualized  much 
that  was  material,  in  common  Semitic  custom ;  and 
a  prophecy  which  has  no  parallel  anywhere  else  in  the 
world.  These  are  simple  facts  ;  they  are  not  affected 
and  not  explained  by  any  chronological  readjustment. 
A  German  scholar  testifies  that  the  picture  of  Israel's 
history  resulting  from  the  Higher  Criticism  "  can  be 
placed  under  the  idea  of  the  government  of  God,  and 
under  the  conception  of  revelation,  as  well  as,  nay, 
better  than,  the  common  view."  And  Alfred  Loisy 
calls  attention  to  the  utterance  of  a  Roman  Catholic 
scholar,  to  the  effect  that  "this  development  of  Is- 
rael's religion  across  the  centuries  "  (that  is,  the  de- 
velopment as  portrayed  by  criticism)  "  is  a  thing  not 
less  admirable,  not  less  worthy  of  God,  not  less  visibly 
supernatural,  than  the  idea  of  a  revelation  complete 
from  the  beginning  and  which  would  not  have  been 
understood  before  the  end  of  the  captivity ;  of  an 


THE    SUPERNATURAL          253 

immobile  legislation  written  in  the  desert  and  ob- 
served only  in  the  time  of  the  second  temple,"  etc.1 
Such  utterances  we  must  accept  as  proof  of  this,  at 
least,  that  the  critical  view  of  the  history  is  not  in- 
consistent with  a  belief  in  the  supernatural. 

By  some  it  is  even  held  to  necessitate  such  a  belief. 
Professor  Sanday,  for  example,  makes  the  following 
reassuring  statement,  which  in  its  simple  emphasis 
leaves  nothing  to  be  desired  :  "  My  experience  is  that 
criticism  leads  straight  up  to  the  supernatural,  and 
not  away  from  it."  He  is  here  thinking  of  the  singu- 
lar phenomena  of  prophecy  in  particular,  of  the  sense 
of  divine  prompting  enjoyed  by  the  prophets  ;  but  the 
remark  is  capable  of  generalization.  "  We  are  willing 
to  explain  them  "  (that  is,  the  Biblical  writers),  "  to 
set  them  in  their  proper  place  in  space  and  time,  to 
give  them  their  true  position  in  the  development  of 
God's  purposes,  but  we  refuse  to  explain  them  away." 
In  a  public  lecture  delivered  before  a  convention  of 
the  Christian  students  of  Scandinavia  in  1901,  Pro- 
fessor Erik  Stave  of  Upsala  emphatically  maintained 
that  "  neither  in  regard  to  its  political  outlines,  nor 
in  regard  to  its  religious  development,  is  the  history 
of  Israel  a  result  of  merely  human  forces,  or  of  the 
free  play  of  accident."  2  In  dealing  with  the  remark- 
able differences,  in  spite  of  the  often  quite  minute 
resemblances  between  the  early  stories  in  Genesis  and 
their  Babylonian  counterparts  —  a  point  on  which  we 
shall  have  occasion  to  dwell  more  fully  in  the  next 

1  "  Etudes  Bibliques,"  p.  89. 

2  "  Der  Einfluss  der  Bibelkritik  auf  das  christliche  Glaubensleben," 
p.  16;  cf.  p.  23. 


254     OLD    TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

chapter — Lenormant  strikingly  remarks,  in  his  "  Be- 
ginnings of  History,"  that  "  between  the  Bible  and 
the  sacred  books  of  Chaldea  there  is  all  the  distance 
of  one  of  the  most  tremendous  revolutions  which  has 
ever  been  effected  in  human  beliefs.  Herein  consists 
the  miracle.  .  .  .  Others  may  seek  to  explain  this 
by  the  simple  natural  process  of  the  conscience  of 
humanity  ;  for  myself,  I  do  not  hesitate  to  find  in  it  the 
effect  of  a  supernatural  intervention  of  Divine  Provi- 
dence, and  I  bow  before  the  God  who  inspired  the  law 
and  the  prophets." 

It  is  clear,  then,  that  criticism  is  not  fairly  described 
as  involving  the  denial  of  the  supernatural.  At  the 
same  time,  its  treatment  of  the  detail  of  the  history 
has  sometimes  not  unnaturally  raised  the  suspicion 
that  one  of  its  objects  is  to  eliminate  the  supernatural, 
where  possible.  A  closer  examination  of  the  facts, 
however,  will  show  that  this  is  not  so,  and  to  this 
examination  we  propose  to  devote  the  rest  of  this 
discussion.  We  do  not  propose  to  enter  into  any 
exhaustive  discussion  of  the  miracles  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament. We  merely  desire  to  show  that  some  of  the 
incidents  which  have  commonly  passed  for  miracles 
are  not  represented  in  the  oldest  sources  as  miracles 
at  all ;  or,  at  best,  are  miraculous  in  happening  only 
when  and  where  they  did. 

We  must  remember,  to  begin  with,  that  the  Old 
Testament  contains  much  more  poetry  than  would  be 
supposed  by  one  familiar  only  with  his  English  Bible, 
and  with  the  principles  of  English  poetry.  The  Re- 
vised Version  has  done  a  good  deal  to  disinter  the 
poetry  that  was  buried  out  of  sight  by  the  typographical 


THE    SUPERNATURAL          255 

methods  of  the  Authorized  Version ;  and  in  few  parts 
of  the  Bible  do  the  changes  of  the  more  modern  version 
come  with  a  greater  shock  of  surprise  and  pleasure 
than  in  the  historical  books.  We  have  not  read  far 
till  we  come  upon  an  ancient  poem,  the  barbarous 
song  of  Lamech,  which  breathes  the  wild,  vengeful 
manners  of  an  early  time.  And  this  is  only  the  first 
of  a  series  of  poems,  or  snatches  of  poems,  which  meet 
us  again  and  again.  Not  only  long  poems  like  the 
blessing  of  Jacob,  the  song  of  Moses,  the  song  of 
Deborah,  or  the  elegy  of  David,  but  briefer  strains 
like  the  curse  of  Canaan,  the  blessing  of  Shem  and 
Japheth,  the  oracle  of  Rebekah,  the  song  of  Miriam, 
the  song  of  the  well,  the  riddle  of  Samson,  the  song 
of  the  Hebrew  women  over  Saul  and  David,  find  their 
place  within  the  pages  of  Hebrew  historical  prose. 

Now  the  effect  of  this  is  very  striking.  It  imparts 
a  quaint  archaic  flavor  to  the  recital  of  the  deeds  of 
the  remote  or  recent  past.  It  stirs  the  blood  as  ballad 
poetry  has  always  done  ;  and  —  what  for  our  purpose 
is  important  —  it  is  an  indication  of  the  sources  on 
which,  in  many  cases,  the  prose  narrative  undoubtedly 
rests.  Nor  is  this  any  mere  conjecture.  For  in  several 
cases  the  prose  narratives  themselves  refer  to  the 
poems  for  corroboration  or  illustration  of  the  incidents 
with  which  they  deal ;  and  it  is  a  thousand  pities  that 
we  know  no  more  of  the  Book  of  Jashar  or  of  the 
Book  of  the  Wars  of  Jehovah  than  they  have  preserved 
for  us  in  their  citations.  But  it  goes  almost  without 
saying  that  they  relied  upon  these  books,  and  possibly 
others  similar,  in  cases  where  no  direct  appeal  is  made. 
This  seems  to  lie  in  the  nature  of  the  case.  Such  a 


256     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

book  as  that  of  the  Wars  of  Jehovah  would  surely 
contain  more  songs  of  the  conquest  than  one.  May 
not  even  the  song  of  Deborah  have  found  a  place 
within  it  ?  We  know  that  for  the  story  of  the  con- 
quests of  Joshua,  the  Book  of  Jashar  was  drawn  upon, 
a  book  which  seems  to  have  been  devoted  to  Israel's 
heroes,  as  we  know  it  to  have  contained  the  elegy  of 
David  over  Saul  and  Jonathan,  and  probably  also  the 
song  —  preserved  in  the  Septuagint  —  in  which  Solo- 
mon dedicated  the  temple. 

If  that  be  so,  is  it  not  reasonable  to  suppose  that 
either  or  both  of  these  books  lie  behind  the  story  of 
many  an  exploit  in  Joshua  and  Judges,  especially  as 
there  are  other  citations  in  the  latter  book,  notably  in 
the  story  of  Samson  ?  It  is  surely  no  unfair  use  of 
the  historical  imagination  to  suppose  that,  as  a  poem 
confessedly  lies  behind  our  present  story  of  Joshua's 
victory  over  his  confederated  foes  in  the  south  (Josh. 
x.  12, 13),  so  the  story  of  the  capture  of  Jericho  may 
rest  upon  another  poem  (Josh.  vi.).  But  even  if  this 
be  not  conceded,  it  is  as  plain  as  the  laws  of  Hebrew 
verse  can  make  it  that  there  is  far  more  poetry,  espe- 
cially in  the  earlier  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  than 
is  acknowledged  even  by  the  Revised  Version.  The 
words  of  Adam,  for  example,  on  the  creation  of  woman 
are  expressed  in  verse : 

This  is  now  bone  of  my  bone, 

And  flesh  of  my  flesh : 
Woman  shall  she  be  called, 

For  from  man  she  was  taken  (Gen.  ii.  23). 

For  him  that  has  ears  to  hear,  the  echo  of  an  old  poem 
can  often  be  heard  even  in  a  context  that  is  matter  of 
fact  to  the  last  degree ;  for  example, 


THE    SUPERNATURAL          257 

In  the  six  hundredth  year  of  Noah's  life,  in  the  second 
month,  on  the  seventeenth  day  of  the  month,  on  the 
same  day 

All  the  fountains  of  the  great  deep  were  broken  up, 
And  the  windows  of  heaven  were  opened  (Gen.  vii.  11). 

To  any  one  who  undertook  it,  this  study  would  be  as 
profitable  as  it  is  fascinating  —  to  search  for  the  poetry 
behind  the  prose,  especially  in  the  earlier  historical 
portions  of  the  Old  Testament.  The  illustrations 
adduced  could  easily  be  amplified  even  by  a  cursory 
study. 

If,  however,  all  this  is  true,  what  follows  ?  That 
often  we  are  reading  poetry  where  we  had  supposed 
we  were  reading  prose ;  and  poetry  has  its  own  laws 
and  canons  of  interpretation.  No  greater  injustice 
can  be  done  to  poetry  than  to  interpret  it  as  prose. 
It  will  not  do  to  treat  as  if  they  had  statistical  or 
aunalistic  value  the  bold  and  fervid  utterances  of  the 
lyric  imagination,  nor  will  it  do  to  interpret  a  meta-' 
phor  as  if  it  were  a  plain  and  sober  statement.  But 
that  is  precisely  what  has  always  happened  to  poetry, 
when  interpreted  into  prose  by  the  less  elastic  minds 
of  a  later  age,  which  has  lost  the  art  of  suggestion, 
and  insists  on  having  everything  defined  and  classi- 
fied. In  his  Essay  on  "  The  Lives  of  the  Saints," 
Froude  aptly  illustrates  this  universal  tendency  from 
the  life  of  St.  Patrick.  "  The  marvellous  in  the  poeti- 
cal lives,"  he  tells  us,  "  is  comparatively  slight ;  the 
after-miracles  being  composed  frequently  out  of  a 
mistake  of  poets'  metaphors  for  literal  truth.  .  .  . 
The  poetical  life  of  St.  Patrick  is  full  of  fine,  wild, 
natural  imagery.  The  boy  is  described  as  a  shepherd 

17 


258     OLD   TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

on  the  hills  of  Down,  and  there  is  a  legend,  well  told, 
of  the  angel  Victor  coming  to  him,  and  leaving  a 
gigantic  footprint  on  a  rock  from  which  he  sprang 
back  into  heaven.  The  legend,  of  course,  rose  from 
some  remarkable  natural  feature  of  the  spot :  as  it 
was  first  told,  a  shadowy  unreality  hangs  over  it,  and 
it  is  doubtful  whether  it  is  more  than  a  vision  of  the 
boy ;  but  in  the  later  prose  all  is  crystalline  ;  the 
story  is  drawn  out,  with  a  barren  prolixity  of  detail 
into  a  series  of  angelic  visitations.  And  again,  when 
Patrick  is  described  as  the  after-apostle  raising  the 
dead  Celts  to  life,  the  metaphor  cannot  be  left  in  its 
natural  force,  and  we  have  a  long,  weary  list  of  literal 
deaths  and  literal  raisings.  So  in  many  ways  the 
freshness  and  individuality  was  lost  with  time." 

So  long  as  metaphors  are  liable  to  be  misunder- 
stood, so  long  will  poetry  be  exposed  to  such  a  fate. 
Whether  ancient  Hebrew  poetry  suffered  in  this  way 
is  a  question  to  be  settled,  not  by  a  priori  considera- 
tions, but  by  an  examination  of  the  available  evidence, 
each  case  upon  its  own  merits  ;  and  it  will  not  be  out 
of  place  to  remember  that,  on  more  occasions  than 
one,  Christ's  own  disciples  missed  the  meaning  of 
metaphors  which  one  might  well  suppose  would  have 
readily  suggested  their  own  interpretation.  When 
He  bade  them  beware  of  the  leaven  of  the  Pharisees, 
they  said,  "It  is  because  we  have  no  bread"  (Mark 
viii.  15-18).  And  when  He  spoke  of  a  sword,  they 
said,  u  Lord,  here  are  two"  (Luke  xxii.  36-38). 

It  is  fortunate  for  our  consideration  of  this  problem 
that  we  have  in  the  Old  Testament  two  or  three  cases 
of  a  duplicated  narrative  —  one  in  prose  and  one  in 


THE   SUPERNATURAL          259 

verse  —  so  that  we  can  watch  the  transition  from  the 
one  to  the  other,  and  see  how,  if  at  all,  the  story  has 
been  affected  in  its  transit.  It  goes  almost  without 
saying  in  such  a  case  that  the  poetical  version  is  the 
older;  the  poet  never  appeals  to  the  prose  history, 
but  the  prose  historian  appeals  to  the  poem.  The 
process  of  transition  can  perhaps  be  studied  to  most 
advantage  in  the  duplicated  account  of  the  attack  by 
Jael  upon  Sisera,  for  in  this  case  both  the  prose  and 
poetical  narratives  go  into  fairly  minute  detail.  Let 
us  hear  the  testimony  of  the  poem  first,  as  it  is  the 
older  (Judges  v.  25-27) : 

Blessed  above  women  shall  Jael  be, 

The  wife  of  Heber  the  Kenite. 

Blessed  shall  she  be  above  women  in  the  tent. 

He  asked  water,  and  she  gave  him  milk ; 

She  brought  him  butter  in  a  lordly  dish. 

She  put  her  hand  to  the  nail, 

And  her  right  hand  to  the  workmen's  hammer; 

And  with  the  hammer  she  smote  Sisera, 

She  smote  through  his  head, 

Yea  she  pierced  and  struck  through  his  temples. 

At  her  feet  he  bowed,  he  fell,  he  lay ; 

At  her  feet  he  bowed,  he  fell : 

Where  he  bowed,  there  he  fell  down  dead. 

This  description  is  as  clear  as  it  is  powerful  and 
graphic.  When  the  tired  chieftain  was  drinking  the 
milk  which  Jael  brought  him,  she  seized  a  hammer 
and  struck  him  therewith  a  mighty  blow  upon  the 
temples,  and  down  he  fell.  A  whole  verse  is  devoted 
to  the  description  of  the  fall :  there  is  a  weird  repetition 
in  the  lines  which  would  fain  sink  the  grim  scene  into 


260     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

the  most  sluggish  imagination.  When  we  pass  to  the 
prose  version,  however,  the  scene  is  changed  (Judges  iv. 
18  ff  .)- 

Sisera  turned  in  unto  her  into  the  tent,  and  she  cov- 
ered him  with  a  rug.  And  he  said  unto  her,  Give  me,  I 
pray  thee,  a  little  water  to  drink ;  for  I  am  thirsty.  And 
she  opened  a  bottle  of  milk,  and  gave  him  drink,  and 
covered  him.  And  he  said  unto  her,  Stand  in  the  door  of 
the  tent,  and  it  shall  be,  when  any  man  doth  come  and 
inquire  of  thee,  and  say,  Is  there  any  man  here  ?  that 
thou  shalt  say,  No.  Then  Jael,  Heber's  wife,  took  a 
tent-pin,  and  took  an  hammer  in  her  hand,  and  went 
softly  unto  him,  and  smote  the  pin  into  his  temples,  and 
it  pierced  through  into  the  ground ;  for  he  was  in  a  deep 
sleep  ;  so  he  swooned  and  died. 

No  apologetic  device  can  successfully  reconcile  these 
two  narratives.  If  he  was  in  a  deep  sleep,  how  then 
did  he  "  bow,  and  fall  and  lie,  yea,  bow  and  fall "  ? 
With  the  most  elaborate  and  impressive  art  the  poet 
rivets  our  attention  on  the  fall  —  a  fall  which  in  the 
prose  narrative  is  impossible,  for  Sisera  is  sleeping. 
How  then  did  the  mistake  arise  ?  Possibly,  as  Robert- 
son Smith  has  suggested,1  through  the  idea  that  two 
actions  instead  of  one  are  described  in  the  first  two 
clauses  of  verse  26  —  an  idea  encouraged  by  the  bold 
use  of  the  word  "  peg  "  in  the  sense  of  the  handle  of 
the  hammer.  The  hand  which  Jael  puts  to  the  peg  is 
not  the  left  hand,  but  the  right.  In  accordance  with 
a  very  familiar  usage  of  Hebrew  poetry  the  second 
clause  often  describes,  with  a  little  enlargement,  or 
repetition,  or  diversity,  the  same  act  as  the  first.  If 

1  "  Old  Testament  in  the  Jewish  Church,"  p.  132. 


THE   SUPERNATURAL          261 

the  question  be  still  asked  how  a  Hebrew  could  come 
to  misunderstand  a  thing  so  simple,  we  can  answer 
that,  in  any  case,  the  prose  version  is  irreconcilable 
with  the  poem,  while  this  explanation  would  account 
for  the  rise  of  that  version  in  course  of  time.  Be- 
sides, an  old  word,  or  a  word  used  in  a  rare  sense, 
can  easily  give  rise  to  misunderstanding.  And  as  we 
have  already  seen,  language  as  simple,  though  of  a 
different  kind,  was  misunderstood  by  those  who  com- 
panied  with  the  Master.  There  is,  of  course,  no  mir- 
acle here ;  but  the  passage  is  an  admirable  illustration 
of  the  dangers  to  which  ancient  poetry  was  exposed 
through  later  misinterpretation. 

This  general  consideration  prepares  the  way  for  the 
examination  of  incidents  which  have  been  commonly 
regarded  as  miraculous.  First,  consider  the  alleged 
miracle  of  the  sun  standing  still  as  narrated  in  Joshua 
x.  12-14: 

Sun,  stand  thou  still  upon  G-ibeon ; 

And  thou,  Moon,  in  the  valley  of  Aijalon. 

A  glance  at  the  Revised  Version  reminds  us,  if 
the  form  of  the  story  were  not  of  itself  sufficient 
to  remind  us,  that  this  narrative  is  partly  prose  and 
partly  verse.  Joshua's  apostrophe  to  the  sun  and 
moon  is  a  poetical  quotation,  excerpted  from  the  Book 
of  Jashar,  and  acknowledged  as  such  by  the  later 
historian.  Doubtless  he  had  the  whole  poem  before 
him,  while  we  have  only  the  extract  which  he  has  seen 
fit  to  give  us.  But  it  is  enough  to  justify  us  in  doubt- 
ing whether  the  interpretation  of  the  incident  as  a 
miracle  is  a  correct  one.  What  the  apostrophe  pre- 


26i     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

cisely  means  has  always  been  a  moot  point  among  the 
commentators —  whether  that  Joshua  is  praying  for  a 
prolongation  of  the  light,  in  order  that  the  fell  work 
of  vengeance  may  be  completed,  or  whether  he  is 
praying  for  darkness;  for  the  literal  translation  of 
the  words  rendered  "  stand  still "  is  "  be  silent." 
But  on  either  view  the  words  are  poetry,  and  are 
not  to  be  interpreted  as  prose.  To  do  so  is  to  argue 
one's  self  destitute  of  poetic  sympathies,  and  to  apply 
to  poetry  a  standard  which,  by  its  very  constitution, 
it  must  refuse  to  acknowledge.  The  modern  historian 
must  have  no  prejudice  against  the  miraculous  as 
such,  if  it  be  properly  attested ;  but  neither  must  he 
seek  miracle  in  incidents  which  the  oldest  sources 
relate  with  all  the  imaginative  freedom  that  has 
always  been  the  special  prerogative  of  poetry. 

A  very  instructive  illustration  of  the  way  in  which 
a  poetic  narrative  is  affected  when  it  is  paraphrased 
by  later  generations  is  to  be  found  in  the  various 
accounts  of  the  crossing  of  the  Red  Sea,  given  in  the 
different  documentary  sources.1  The  oldest  source  is 
undoubtedly  the  poem  in  Exodus  xv. ;  and  there  the 
incident  is  thus  described  : 

With  the  blast  of  Thy  nostrils  the  waters  were  piled  up, 

The  floods  stood  upright  as  an  heap ; 

The  deeps  were  congealed  in  the  heart  of  the  sea  (ver.  8) . 

This  is  a  powerful  poetic  description  of  a  storm  —  of 
the  effect  of  wind  upon  a  shallow  sea.  So  in  verse  10  : 

Thou  didst  blow  with  Thy  wind,  the  sea  covered  them. 

1  The  manner  in  which  the  separate  documents  are  discovered  has 
already  been  illustrated  in  Chapter  VI. 


THE   SUPERNATURAL          263 

Now  in  the  Jehovist  narrative  which  stands  nearest 
in  point  of  time  to  the  poem,  the  action,  though  divine, 
is  still  ordinary. 

Jehovah  caused  the  sea  to  go  back  by  a  strong  east 
wind  all  the  night,  and  made  the  sea  dry  land,  and  the 
waters  were  divided  ;  and  the  Egyptians  fled  against  it, 
and  Jehovah  overthrew  the  Egyptians  in  the  midst  of  the 
sea. 

Here,  as  in  the  poem,  though  with  more  detail,  the 
sea  is  driven  back  by  a  furious  wind ;  the  Egyptians 
try  to  cross  as  the  Israelites  had  done,  but  they  perish 
in  the  returning  water.  In  the  Elohist  document,  a 
little  further  removed  from  the  original  source,  the 
incident  begins  to  assume  a  somewhat  more  miraculous 
aspect.  Moses  lifts  up  his  rod  —  a  regular  feature  of 
the  Elohistic  narrative  —  the  angel  of  God  places  him- 
self between  Israel  and  her  pursuers,  and  took  off  their 
chariot  wheels.  In  the  priestly  document,  which  is 
much  the  latest,  the  original  metaphor  of  the  poem  is 
hardened  into  a  plain  prosaic  statement.  The  waters 
were  divided,  and  the  Israelites  went  into  the  midst  of 
the  sea  upon  the  dry  ground,  and  the  waters  were  a  wall 
unto  them  on  their  right  hand  and  on  their  left.  The 
bold  figures  of  the  poem  are  interpreted  by  the  later 
historian  into  a  miracle  of  the  strangest  sort :  the  piled- 
up  waters  become  a  wall  on  the  right  hand  and  on  the 
left.  Here  we  see  the  transformations  of  a  poem  as  it 
passes  across  the  centuries.  The  story  is  in  each 
document  substantially  the  same ;  but  it  increasingly 
tends  to  take  on  a  miraculous  shape. 

Two  other  interesting  illustrations   of  the   same 


264     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

tendency  are  to  be  found  in  the  story  of  Samson. 
The  Revised  Version  makes  it  clear  that  the  tale  in 
Judges  xv.  rests  on  an  ancient  poem,  two  lines  of  which 
are  quoted  in  verse  16.  Now  let  us  start  with  the 
poem,  as  that  is  the  older  source.  The  text  and  trans- 
lation are  not  just  as  certain  as  we  could  wish,1  but 
the  translation  of  the  Revised  Version  will  serve  our 
purpose.  Now  the  first  thing  to  notice  is  that  the 
first  two  words  of  the  poem  —  bilechi  in  the  Hebrew  — 
are  capable  of  two  translations  :  they  may  mean  either 
with  a  jaw-bone  or  at  LeJii.  Again,  the  Hebrew  word 
for  "  ass "  is  identical  with  the  word  translated 
"  heap,"  so  that  what  originally  meant  at  Lehi,  heaps 
upon  heaps,  could  easily  be  interpreted  to  read  with 
the  jaw-bone  of  an  ass,  heaps  upon  heaps,  especially  if 
we  assume  that  the  word  for  "  heap  "  was  written 
once  too  often  —  and  nothing  is  commoner  in  ancient 
manuscripts  in  such  a  context.  Once  the  word  "  ass  " 
appeared  in  the  first  line,  under  the  influence  of  the 
interpretation  of  lechi  as  jaw-bone,  the  same  influence 
would  naturally  attract  the  word  into  the  second  line ; 
so  that  the  lines  of  the  original  may  have  simply  run : 

At  Lehi,  heaps  upon  heaps, 

At  Lehi,  I  smote  a  thousand  men. 

This  is  on  the  assumption  that  the  dubious  word  ren- 
dered "  jaw-bone  "  should  be  translated  by  "  Lehi." 
But  should  it  ?  How  shall  that  question  be  settled  ? 
The  margin  of  the  Revised  Version  reveals  the  inter- 
esting fact  that  in  other  verses  besides  the  one  in 

1  Cf.  Cobb  in  "Journal  of  Biblical  Literature,"  1901,  vol.  xx.  pt.  2, 
"  Hebrew  Khythm." 


THE   SUPERNATURAL          265 

question,  notably  in  verse  19,  the  same  alternative 
translations  occur,  and  it  deliberately  inserts  "  Lehi " 
in  the  text  of  verse  19,  where  the  Authorized  Version 
translates  by  "  the  jaw,"  thus  removing,  by  this  simple 
change,  one  miracle  out  of  the  passage :  "  God  clave 
the  hollow  place  that  is  in  Lehi,  and  there  came  water 
thereout"  (R.  V.)-  The  story  describes  the  origin  of 
a  spring  or  well ;  and  that  "  Lehi,"  not  "  jaw-bone," 
is  the  correct  translation  is  made  practically  certain 
by  the  concluding  statement  that  the  spring  (En) 
exists  in  Lehi  unto  this  day  (so  A.  V.).  With  this 
clue  we  go  back  to  verse  17,  and  find  that  the  place 
of  Samson's  exploit  was  Ramath-lehi,  which  literally 
means  "  the  high  place  of  the  jaw-bone."  Now  the 
bearings  of  the  story  begin  to  be  intelligible.  The 
scene  of  the  exploits  was  known  as  Lehi  or  Ramath- 
lehi,  the  hill  of  the  jaw-bone,  which  in  all  proba- 
bility took  its  name  from  its  shape,  just  as  possibly 
the  shape  of  another  hill  gave  to  it  the  name  of  Gol- 
gotha, the  place  of  the  skull.  Samson  then  wrought 
his  deeds  of  daring  bilechi,  that  is,  not  with  a  jaw- 
bone, but  at  Lehi.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  that 
is  the  sense  of  the  earliest  form  of  the  story,  and  that 
the  subsequent  version  of  it  rested  on  misunder- 
standing. 

In  all  the  cases  which  have  been  discussed,  frag- 
ments of  the  ancient  poetry  on  which  the  prose  history 
rests  have  fortunately  been  preserved  ;  but  it  is  practi- 
cally certain,  as  we  have  seen,  that  there  is  a  poetical 
basis  for  much  of  the  present  historical  narrative,  even 
where  no  direct  appeal  is  made.  It  remains  to  ask 
whether  we  have  any  reason  to  believe  that  this  im- 


266     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

plicit  poetry  shared  the  fortunes  which  some  of  the 
poetry  that  has  been  preserved  undoubtedly  shared  at 
the  hands  of  later  interpretation.  The  description  of 
the  fall  of  Jericho  would  seem  to  be  such  an  instance. 
The  impression  one  naturally  derives  from  the  story 
as  told  in  Joshua  vi.  is  that  the  walls  miraculously  fell 
at  the  sound  of  the  trumpet. 

When  the  people  heard  the  sound  of  the  trumpet,  the 
people  shouted  with  a  great  shout,  and  the  wall  fell 
down  flat,  so  that  the  people  went  up  into  the  city,  every 
man  straight  before  him,  and  they  took  the  city. 

Now  is  it  not  clear  that  this  must  be  interpreted  as 
the  language  of  poetry  ?  The  religious  meaning  be- 
hind the  poetical  form  is  that  no  walls  can  stand 
before  Jehovah  when  He  fights  for  His  people;  fall 
they  did,  as  fall  they  must,  at  the  blast  of  the  horn 
and  the  battle-shout.  The  story  is  so  told  as  to  em- 
phasize the  mysterious  presence  of  the  divine  help; 
but  only  a  dull  imagination  would  suppose  that  it 
implied  the  absence  of  fighting.1  The  victory  was 
complete,  and  very  likely  easy,  but  it  was  at  least 
contested.  We  are  fortunate  to  possess,  in  another 
part  of  the  book,2  interesting  and  quite  incidental 
testimony  to  the  fact  that  there  was  fighting.  "  Ye 
went  over  Jordan,  and  came  unto  Jericho :  and  the 
men  of  Jericho  fought  against  you"  A  battle  there 

1  The  passage  receives  admirable  illustration  in  Professor  Smith's 
"  Historical  Geography  of  the  Holy  Land,"  pp.  267,  268  :  "  In  war,  Jeri- 
cho has  always  been  easily  taken.    That  her  walls  fell  down  at  the  sound 
of  Joshua's  trumpets  is  no  exaggeration,  but  the  soberest  summary  of 
all  her  history." 

2  Josh.  xxiv.  11. 


THE   SUPERNATURAL          267 

was,  though  perhaps  not  a  very  fierce  one ;  but  the 
poets  and  historians  of  Israel  always  and  lovingly 
dwell  rather  on  the  help  given  them  by  their  own 
God-man  of  war,  than  on  the  prowess  and  tactics  of 
the  human  warriors,  though  these  are  not  forgotten.1 
Scholars  who  interpret  in  this  way  such  narratives 
as  those  we  have  been  considering  are  obviously  not 
inspired  by  any  animus  against  the  supernatural,  but 
simply  by  the  desire  to  be  true  to  all  the  facts,  and  to 
interpret  each  department  of  literature  by  the  canons 
which  are  properly  applicable  to  it.  If,  however,  the 
results  of  a  legitimate  exegesis  are,  as  we  have  seen, 
to  set  in  a  natural  light  some  incidents  which  we  had 
been  accustomed  to  regard  as  supernatural,  it  is  all 
the  more  incumbent  upon  us,  who  believe  in  the 
supernatural,  to  rest  it  upon  a  larger  argument,  which 
will  not  be  shattered  upon  the  minutia3  of  exegetical 
interpretation, but  which  is  as  broad  as  history  and  as 
incontrovertible  as  the  uniqueness  of  Israel. 

1  Thomson  ("  The  Christian  Miracles  and  the  Conclusions  of  Sci- 
ence," p.  31)  regards  the  fall  of  Jericho  as  belonging  to  those  "  events 
which  are  not  in  themselves  miraculous,  unless  in  so  far  as  they  derive 
this  character  from  a  meeting  together  of  ordinary  circumstances  in  a 
way  so  strange  and  singular  as  to  demand  reference  for  their  conjunc- 
tion to  the  immediate  interposition  of  a  personal  and  supernatural 
power."  There  is  an  element  of  truth  in  this  ;  but  the  narrative  needs 
no  special  defence  as  soon  as  its  poetic  character  is  recognized.  H. 
Clay  Trumbull  ingeniously  explains  the  falling  of  the  walls  by  the 
vibratory  motion  of  the  march,  rendering  the  foundations  insecure ; 
and  for  the  effects  of  the  shout  he  compares  the  concussions  of  cannon- 
ading or  the  blasting  of  rocks  ("  Sunday  School  Times,"  Oct.  4,  1902). 


CHAPTER  X 
CRITICISM  AND  INSPIRATION 

IP  criticism  is  to  have  its  way,  what  is  to  become 
of  the  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures  ?  That  is  a  ques- 
tion that  is  perplexing  many  minds  to-day.  Before 
discussing  the  possible  fate  of  inspiration,  it  is  worth 
while  to  know  what  we  mean  by  it.  Whether  it  is 
imperilled  by  criticism  or  not,  will  depend  very  much 
upon  what  we  conceive  it  to  involve.  And  here  at 
the  outset  we  are  met  by  a  difficulty  of  no  mean  order. 
For,  as  the  late  Canon  Liddon  said, "  No  authoritative 
definition  of  what  the  inspiration  of  Holy  Scripture 
is,  of  what  it  does  or  does  not  permit  or  imply,  has 
ever  been  propounded  by  the  Church  of  Christ."  The 
Church,  under  the  providence  of  God,  has  shown  her 
wisdom  in  abstaining  from  defining  a  quality  so  subtle, 
however  real  and  pervasive,  as  to  elude  definition ;  and 
there  is  much  to  be  said  for  the  cautious  statement  of 
the  late  Master  of  Balliol,  in  his  famous  essay  on  the 
"  Interpretation  of  Scripture,"  that  "  all  definitions 
perhaps  err  in  attempting  to  define  what,  though  real, 
is  incapable  of  being  defined  in  an  exact  manner." 

Nothing  would  seem  at  first  sight  to  be  easier  than 
to  enumerate  the  qualities,  or  some  of  them,  that  must 
be  possessed  by  a  book  for  which  inspiration  is 
claimed.  The  Bible  is  commonly  known  as  the  Word 


CRITICISM    AND    INSPIRATION      269 

of  God ;  its  authorship,  therefore,  should  guarantee  its 
perfection  in  every  department  and  in  every  detail. 
In  ancient  times  the  relation  between  the  Biblical 
writers  and  the  God  who  inspired  them  was  expressed 
by  the  simile  of  the  lyre  or  the  harp,  which  had  but 
to  be  struck  by  the  hand  of  the  player ;  and  the  simile 
perfectly  illustrates  the  supposed  passivity  of  the 
recipients  of  revelation.  But  we  no  sooner  examine 
the  books  than  we  see  that  there  was  more  than 
passivity.  Everywhere  there  are  marks  of  the  keenest 
activity  and  the  strongest  individuality.  We  find  in 
the  Old  Testament,  for  example,  two  prophets  offering 
opposite  messages  to  the  same  people  at  almost  the 
same  time  :  Isaiah  sublimely  sure  that  the  temple 
will  stand,  Micah  sternly  confident  that  it  will  be 
levelled  with  the  ground.  We  find  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment Christian  truth  apprehended  and  appropriated 
in  widely  differing  ways:  Paul's  emphasis  on  faith 
matched  by  James's  insistence  on  works.  There  is 
anything  but  monotony  in  the  books  of  the  Bible : 
there  is  the  ever  changing  interest  of  varied  human 
personalities. 

In  other  words,  the  Bible  is  more  than  the  Word  of 
God,  or  than  words  of  God.  It  is  also  a  word  of  men, 
or  words  of  men ;  and  would  it  not  be  natural  to 
expect  that,  as  surely  as  it  has  upon  it  the  stamp  of 
divinity,  because  it  comes  from  God,  so  surely  will  it 
also  bear  the  stamp  of  humanity,  because  it  comes 
through  men  ?  We  would,  from  this  point  of  view, 
have  as  much  reason  for  supposing  that  it  shared  the 
imperfection  and  fallibility  of  all  human  things,  as 
that  it  was  perfect  and  infallible,  unless  we  could 


270     OLD    TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

convince  ourselves  that  the  presence  of  God  within 
it  preserved  it  from  those  otherwise  inevitable  dangers. 
Now  it  is  easy  to  argue  that  God  must  have  so  pre- 
served it;  but  it  is  both  more  profitable  and  more 
reverent  to  examine  what  He  did  than  to  assume  and 
dogmatize  about  what  He  must  have  done.  We  have 
no  right  to  bring  to  the  examination  of  Scripture  any 
preconceived  notion  of  inspiration :  if  we  do,  by  what 
authority  shall  we  justify  it  ?  To  learn  wherein  their 
inspiration  consists,  we  must  interrogate  the  Scriptures 
themselves  as  to  what  they  are  and  what  they  claim 
to  be  and  do.  Then  and  not  till  then  shall  we  be  in 
a  position  to  judge  whether  their  characteristic  quality 
has  been  essentially  affected  by  criticism  or  not. 

Now  it  is  more  difficult  than  it  seems  to  approach 
Scripture  without  prepossession.  Our  knowledge  of 
its  place  in  history,  our  experience  of  its  power  in 
our  own  lives,  often  encourages  a  certain  reverence, 
neither  unintelligible  nor  unworthy,  which  prevents 
the  facts  from  making  their  natural  impression  upon 
our  minds  and  impels  us  to  vindicate  or  explain  away 
all  that,  to  our  better  judgment,  seems  unworthy. 
It  was  this  that  led  the  fathers  into  the  flowery  paths 
of  allegory.  To  men  who  did  not  realize  that  morality 
and  religion  had  a  history,  and  that  God  revealed 
Himself  to  men  as  they  could  bear,  much  in  the  Old 
Testament  was  bound,  if  interpreted  in  its  plain  and 
natural  sense,  to  seem  beneath  the  dignity  of  reve- 
lation ; 1  so  it  was  purified  by  the  easy  method  of  alle- 
gory. This  spirit  is  far  from  dead  to-day. 

1  For  this  reason,  the  Gnostics  rejected  it.  In  the  absence  of  the 
idea  of  historical  development  and  of  degrees  of  inspiration  they  could 
do  nothing  else. 


CRITICISM   AND    INSPIRATION     271 

Otto  Funcke,  the  German  Spurgeon,  humorously 
tells  in  his  autobiography1  how  adroitly  his  mother 
used  to  extricate  herself  from  the  difficulties  of  inter- 
pretation into  which  she  was  occasionally  led  by  her 
view  of  Scripture.  "  It  was  very  hard  for  her,"  he 
says,  "  to  allow  that  the  sins  of  the  holy  men  and 
women  of  whom  Scripture  tells  us  were  real  sins.  So 
she  adopted  the  most  daring  interpretations  in  order 
to  preserve  the  immaculate  virtue  of  her  i  saints.' >! 
She  excused,  for  example,  Rebekah's  deception  of 
Isaac  on  the  ground  that  "  the  old  man  was  already 
no  doubt  a  little  childish ;  and  Isaac  would  certainly 
thank  Rebekah  in  heaven  for  having  made  him  against 
his  will  an  agent  in  the  divine  purpose."  David's 
dancing  she  cautiously  justified  by  asserting  that  he 
danced  alone  and  not  with  a  woman !  It  was  not 
easy  to  exonerate  Abraham  of  his  lie  before  Pharaoh. 
This  she  explained  —  by  a  happy  approximation  to 
the  truth  —  as  due  to  the  imperfection  of  the  old  dis- 
pensation, under  which  lying  was  not  regarded  as  a 
real  sin.  As  proof  she  urged  that  the  pious  Jews  of 
to-day  do  not  count  it  a  sin  to  cheat  and  deceive  their 
Christian  fellow-citizens ! 

All  such  evasions  of  the  obvious  sense,  whether  in 
ancient  days  or  modern,  all  such  defences  of  the 
morally  indefensible,  have  their  roots  in  the  recogni- 
tion of  a  divine  presence  in  Scripture,  with  which  the 
natural  and  obvious  interpretation  of  such  incidents 
is  supposed  to  be  inconsistent ;  but  they  arise  no  less 
from  the  failure  to  recognize  the  intense  humanity  of 
Scripture.  The  men  who  wrote  and  the  men  of  whom 

1  "  Fussspuren  des  lebendigen  Gottes,"  vol.  i.  pp.  75,  76. 


272     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

they  wrote  were  of  like  passions  with  ourselves.  We 
have  in  the  Bible  not  so  much  the  pure  presence  of 
the  Divine  Spirit,  as  that  Spirit  moving  among,  acting 
upon,  blended  with  very  human  spirits.  Some  one 
has  said  that  we  cannot  have  the  assurance  of  infalli- 
bility "  unless  we  could  ensure  not  only  the  presence 
of  the  Divine  Spirit  in  the  man,  but  also  the  absence 
of  everything  else."  Now  one  of  the  supreme  tasks  of 
criticism  —  a  task  in  which  it  has  been  very  success- 
ful—  has  been  the  recovery  of  the  humanity  of  the 
Bible.  For  centuries  this  had  suffered  an  almost 
total  neglect  which,  historically  considered,  was  quite 
explicable.  When  the  Bible  was  felt  to  be  not  a  com- 
pendium of  more  or  less  intelligible  doctrines,  but  a 
message  of  the  living  God,  it  began  to  be  appreciated 
also  as  a  message  of  and  to  living  men.  The  interest 
in  ancient  humanity  generally  was  accompanied  by 
an  interest  in  the  humanity  of  the  Bible  ;  and  criticism 
may  be  described  as  the  process  which  has  more  and 
more  striven  to  lay  that  humanity  bare. 

Now  it  will  be  clear  why  there  is  often  a  seeming 
antagonism  between  criticism  and  inspiration.  The 
latter  regards  the  Bible  as  a  divine  book ;  the  former, 
as  a  human  book.  The  critics  will  often  seem  to 
ignore  its  divinity,  just  as  their  opponents  often  seem 
to  forget  its  humanity.  But  there  is  no  real  or  neces- 
sary opposition  between  the  two.  The  Bible  is  in- 
deed a  word  of  God,  but  it  is  a  word  which  came  not 
only  to  men,  but  through  them.  In  justice  to  both 
its  elements,  then,  it  not  only  may,  but  must,  be  stud- 
ied on  both  its  sides.  The  studies  are  not  mutually 
exclusive,  but  complementary.  To  feel  the  living 


CRITICISM    AND    INSPIRATION     273 

throb  of  the  message,  the  plain  man  must  try  to 
understand  the  thrill  of  response  which  it  woke  in  the 
heart  of  the  man  to  whom  it  first  came ;  while  the 
scholar  who  studies  the  men  and  their  times,  ideas, 
equipment,  genius,  may  yet  believe  with  all  his  heart 
that  there  is  an  unseen  presence  in  this  book,  that  it 
is  not  these  men  themselves  that  speak,  but  the  Spirit 
that  speaks  in  them. 

Perhaps  we  do  not  really  appreciate  the  divine 
majesty  of  the  Bible,  until  we  see  how  varied  and  fas- 
cinating is  the  humanity  of  it.  Let  us  look,  then,  at 
the  latter  first,  and  this  will  help  us  to  see  the  con- 
ditions under  which  inspiration,  using  that  word  in 
the  loosest  sense,  had  to  work.  Whatever  it  is,  it 
cannot  be  inconsistent  with  the  acknowledged  facts 
of  the  Bible.  If  we  find  facts  which  are  not  congruous 
with  what  we  should  expect  in  an  inspired  book,  we 
shall  not  pervert  or  reject  or  explain  away  the  facts 
in  the  interests  of  the  theory ;  but  we  shall  allow  the 
facts  themselves  to  suggest  to  us  a  theory  which  will, 
if  possible,  meet  them  all.  It  is  an  ungracious  task 
to  fasten  our  attention,  even  for  a  little,  on  the  diffi- 
culties of  Scripture.  Its  message  is,  in  the  main,  so 
plain  and  direct,  its  words  so  simply  and  so  univer- 
sally true,  that  they  readily  lodge  themselves  in  the 
unsophisticated  conscience,  and  constrain  a  true  heart 
to  acknowledge  them  as  divine.  At  the  same  time, 
difficulties  there  are,  and  they  are  not  far  to  seek. 
"  The  attempt  to  interpret  all  divergencies  in  the 
Scriptures  as  the  result  of  misconception  or  ill-will  on 
the  part  of  the  reader  is  arduous  and  wearisome."1 
1  Julia  Wedgwood,  "  The  Message  of  Israel/'  p.  19. 
18 


274     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

And  these  difficulties  must  be  frankly  faced.  Intel- 
lectual honesty  demands  that,  no  less  than  the  desire 
to  know  what  things  remain  unshaken,  amid  all  the 
change  of  critical  opinion.  A  study  of  this  kind  is 
preparatory  to  an  appreciation  of  the  distinctively 
divine  element  in  the  Bible ;  if  it  cannot  directly  tell 
us  what  inspiration  is,  it  will  at  least  clear  the  way 
by  showing  us  what  it  is  not. 

A  book  that  is  divine  must  be  true.  That  seems  to 
be  a  postulate  which  may  be  conceded  without  misgiv- 
ing. But  difficulties  arise  as  soon  as  we  begin  more 
closely  to  define  and  apply  it.  What  kind  of  truth 
must  it  possess  ?  (i)  Must  it  be  always  scientifically 
true  —  never  clashing  with  the  facts  that  science  has 
discovered,  and  could  no  more  doubt  than  she  could 
doubt  her  right  to  examine  them  ?  (ii)  Must  it  be 
always  historically  true  —  never  falling  into  error  in 
its  statement  of  the  objective  facts  of  history,  and, 
above  all,  never  showing  any  inconsistency  with  it- 
self, or  making  two  irreconcilable  statements  about 
the  same  incident  ?  (iii)  Must  it  be  always  morally 
true  —  never  exhibiting  as  praiseworthy  a  character 
which  our  moral  sense  condemns,  and  never  urging  a 
moral  precept  whose  validity  would  not  be  universally 
acknowledged  ?  (iv)  Must  it  be  always  religiously 
true  —  never  presenting  us  with  a  conception  of  God 
which  needs  to  be  abrogated,  purified,  or  transcended  ? 
Obviously  these  questions  are  not  to  be  answered  by 
any  a  priori  views  of  what  the  revelation  purporting 
to  be  divine  must  contain,  but  only  by  a  patient 
and  exhaustive  examination  of  the  literature  of  that 
revelation. 


CRITICISM    AND    INSPIRATION     275 

(i)  The  number  is  decreasing  perceptibly  of  those 
who  would  claim  that  the  words  of  the  Bible  are  a 
perfect  revelation  on  such  matters  of  physical  science 
as  it  touches,  and  that  they  therefore  preclude  the 
possibility  of  scientific  conclusions  that  differ  from  its 
own  statements  or  implications.  The  first  chapter 
of  Genesis,  when  read  in  the  right  spirit  and  for  the 
right  purpose,  is  a  word  of  unapproachable  majesty  ; 
but  there  are  few  scholars  who  believe  that  it  rep- 
resents with  absolutely  literal  accuracy  the  process 
of  creation.  It  is  indeed  a  providential  approximation 
to  the  truth  of  science,  but  it  is  not  a  substitute  for 
it.  It  presupposes  the  cosmogony  of  an  age  very  dif- 
ferent from  our  own.  Those  who  feel  that  the  truths 
of  science  are  too  convincing  to  be  evaded,  attempt  to 
bring  the  Scriptural  account  into  harmony  with  them, 
by  urging  that  one  day  is  with  the  Lord  as  a  thousand 
years,  and  so  on.  All  that  is  beside  the  point.  It 
arises  from  a  mistaken  view  of  the  function  of  Scrip- 
ture, and  besides  is  contradicted  by  the  whole  spirit 
and  letter  of  the  narrative.  If  the  days  be  not  con- 
ceived as  real  days,  then  the  institution  of  the  Sab- 
bath as  the  seventh  has  no  meaning ;  neither  would 
the  constantly  recurring  phrase  u  the  evening  and  the 
morning"  have  any.1  The  writer  gives  us  a  clear 
and  orderly  account  of  his  conception  ;  we  must  do 
him  the  honor  of  supposing  that  he  meant  what  he 
said.  If  his  scientific  notions  can  no  longer  be  shared 
by  students  of  modern  science,  the  logical  conclusion 
is  that  it  is  not  his  science  that  the  Divine  Spirit 

1  "  God  called  the  light  day,  and  the  darkness  he  called  night." 
Gen.  i.  5.  This  is  surely  explicit  enough. 


276     OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

intended  that  we  should  learn  from  him,  but  some- 
thing else.1  And  if  the  design  of  the  first  chapter  of 
Genesis  was  not  to  inform  us  about  truths  which,  in 
the  long  course  of  history,  were  to  be  discovered  by 
investigation,  but  to  usher  us  into  the  awful  presence 
of  the  Creator-God,  then  the  chapter  has  served 
its  divine  purpose,  and  it  is  idle  to  speak  of  its 
conflict  with  science,  and  frivolous  to  urge  that  as  a 
reason  for  rejecting  its  specific  truth.  "  Only  an  alto- 
gether unhistorical  sense,"  says  Gunkel,  u  can  make 
the  attempt  to  harmonize  Genesis  i.  and  modern  sci- 
ence, or  to  bring  Darwin  into  the  field  against  Moses. 
It  is  truly  pitiful  that  our  church  has  not  yet  won  a 
clear  and  worthy  relation  to  Genesis  i.  so  that  the 
uneducated,  or  half-educated,  when  they  hear  for  the 
first  time  of  the  '  natural  story  of  the  creation,'  think 
the  Bible  is  refuted.  The  dispute  between  theology 
and  geology  is  settled  when  both  keep  to  their  own 
limits.  Religion  will  have  to  allow  science  to  speak 
of  the  origin  of  the  world  and  of  mankind,  as  best 
she  can.  Science,  on  the  other  hand,  will  neither  af- 
firm nor  deny  the  dogma  of  the  creation.  This  dogma 
has  other  than  scientific  roots.  It  is  (according  to 
Schleiermacher)  the  expression  of  faith  in  the  absolute 
power  of  God  over  the  world."  2  Whether  the  more 
incidental  statements  of  the  Bible  touching  matters 
of  physical  science — for  example,  that  the  earth  is 
founded  upon  the  seas,  or  stablished  so  that  it  can- 

1  Cf.  Aubrey  Moore,  "  Science  and  the  Faith,"  p.  220.     We  must 
not  "claim  for  Genesis  what  it  never  claims  for  itself  —  that  it  is  a 
prophetic  anticipation  of  nineteenth  century  science." 

2  Genesis.    "  Handkommentar  zum  Alten  Testament,"  p.  120. 


CRITICISM   AND   INSPIRATION     277 

not  be  moved ;  or  its  more  deliberate  statements, 
such  as  those  concerning  the  creation  in  Genesis  i.  — 
whether  these  are  or  are  not  corroborated  by  modern 
science,  is  a  question  to  be  examined  quite  dispas- 
sionately. If  these  are  found  to  be  scientifically  un- 
tenable —  and  this  is  sometimes  undeniably  the  case 
—  then  we  shall  have  to  conclude  that  the  inspiration 
of  the  Bible  does  not  guarantee  its  scientific  truth. 

(ii)  What,  then,  of  historical  truth?  Here  the 
phenomena  are,  to  say  the  least,  surprising.  Con- 
flicting accounts  of  the  same  incident  cannot  both 
be  true,  and  yet  such  accounts  are  undoubtedly  to 
be  met  with.  According  to  Kings,  Solomon  ceded 
Hiram  cities  in  Galilee  in  return  for  a  loan  he  re- 
ceived from  him ;  in  the  Chronicler's  account  of  the 
same  transaction,  it  is  Hiram  who  gives  Solomon  the 
cities,  and  it  is  not  easy  to  see  why.  David  numbers 
the  people,  according  to  one  account,  at  the  prompting 
of  Jehovah ;  according  to  another,  at  the  prompting 
of  Satan.  Even  a  cursory  comparison  of  Chronicles 
with  Samuel  and  Kings  would  yield  a  large  number 
of  illustrations.  There  are  even  two  cases  in  which 
the  Chronicler  contradicts  himself.1  With  all  such 
phenomena  we  may  do  one  of  two  things :  accept  the 
inconsistencies,  or  attempt  to  explain  them  away. 
Some  of  them,  at  any  rate,  are  not  to  be  explained 
away  by  any  apologetic  device;  and  the  only  other 
alternative  is  to  accept  them.  If  we  do  this,  as  we 
sometimes  must,  then  we  shall  have  to  admit  that 
inspiration  does  not  necessarily  guarantee  the  abso- 
lute accuracy  of  every  historical  statement. 

1  Cf.  2  Chr.  xv.  17  with  xiv.  5,  and  xx.  33  with  xvii.  6. 


: 


278     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

This  is  not  surprising  when  we  remember  how 
comparatively  indifferent  not  a  few  of  the  Hebrew 
historical  books  are  to  history  in  our  sense  of  the 
word.  "  The  reigns  of  two  of  the  greatest  kings  of 
Israel  and  Judah  —  Jeroboam  II.  and  Uzziah  —  are 
dismissed  in  seven  verses  each,  —  verses,  too,  which 
in  the  latter  case  contain  no  hint,  and  in  the  former 
not  much  more  than  a  hint,  of  their  exceptional 
importance"  (2  Kings  xiv.  23-29  and  xv.  1-7).1 
When  we  think  of  the  elaborate  and  lively  accounts 
of  the  battle  of  Salamis  in  Herodotus,  or  of  Cannae 
in  Livy,  and  then  turn  to  the  meagre  pages  of  the 
books  of  Kings,  with  only  a  word  for  the  siege  of 
Samaria,  and  only  a  verse  or  two  for  the  capture  of 
Jerusalem,  we  begin  to  realize  that  whatever  the 
function  of  the  Bible  is,  and  however  high,  in  certain 
directions,  is  its  appreciation  of  fact,  yet 'its  interest 
in  the  details  of  history,  if  we  may  judge  from  its 
extant  historical  records,  was  not  so  living  or  con- 
suming as  our  own.  It  is  not  without  significance 
that  the  Jews  placed  their  historical  books,  from 
Joshua  to  Kings,  in  the  second  section  of  the  Old 
Testament,  known  as  The  Prophets,  thereby  indicating 
that  the  history  is  there  considered  from  the  prophetic 
standpoint,  and  that  its  interests  gather  round  the 
ideas  and  principles  it  illustrates  rather  than  round 
the  recorded  facts.  It  would  not  be  proper  to  say 
that  the  Hebrew  people  were  not  interested  in  the 
facts  of  their  history.  The  appeal  of  the  older  his- 
torians to  such  collections  of  ballads  as  the  Wars  of 
Jehovah,  or  the  Book  of  Jashar,  the  reiterated  appeal 

1  McFadyen,  "Messages  of  the  Historians,"  p.  91. 


OF  THE 

I   UNIVERSITY 
CRITICISM   AND    INSPIRATION     279 

of  Kings  and  Chronicles  to  royal  annals  for  the  ex- 
pansion of  a  hint  or  for  information  on  points  con- 
cerning which  they  are  silent,  prove  abundantly  both 
that  there  was  an  appetite  for  fact  and  that  that 
appetite  was  fed.  But  our  contention  now  is  that 
that  is  not  the  leading  characteristic  of  the  historical 
books  of  the  Bible.  Their  large  omissions  and  occa- 
sional inconsistencies  are  significant  of  their  aim, 
which  is  not  so  much  to  record  as  to  interpret. 

We  shall  not  allow  ourselves  to  be  unduly  discon- 
certed by  the  difficulties  which  occur  to  every  more 
or  less  attentive  reader  of  such  a  story  as  the  Flood 
story.  We  know,  as  Delitzsch  says  —  and  nothing  but 
a  false  view  of  the  function  of  the  Bible  obliges  us  to 
believe  otherwise  —  that  a  flood  covering  the  whole 
world  up  to  the  highest  mountain  tops  is  physically 
and  geologically  inconceivable.  We  must  all  have 
silently  wondered  how  Noah  contrived  to  get  so  many 
animals  of  so  many  different  kinds  into  his  ark,  how 
food  and  drink  were  to  be  procured  for  them  all,  how 
the  small  window  that  ran  round  the  upper  story 
would  supply  the  lower  stories  with  light,  how  the 
narrator  could  speak  so  confidently  of  what  was  pass- 
ing in  the  mind  of  God,  and  so  on.  These  are  all 
difficulties,  and  though  some  of  them  may  not  be 
insurmountable,  they  are  enough  to  raise  a  legitimate 
suspicion  as  to  the  historical  probability  of  all  the 
details  recorded.  Should  this  suspicion  arise  in  any 
one's  mind,  and  deepen  with  further  study,  he  will  be 
in  a  painful  dilemma,  unless  he  lets  these  facts  teach 
him,  as  they  are  surely  calculated  to  do,  that  the 
importance  of  such  a  story  cannot  lie  in  its  historical 


OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

detail,  but  in  something  else.  What  that  other  thing 
is  we  shall  have  occasion  subsequently  to  examine. 
Meantime  it  is  clear  that  whatever  inspiration  does,  it 
does  not  necessarily  guarantee  accurate,  lucid,  and, 
self-consistent  historical  statement. 

In  the  narrower  sense  of  the  term,  Biblical  history 
begins  with  Abraham.  There  is  a  weird  titanic 
majesty  about  the  vast  period  before  him,  covered  by 
the  first  eleven  chapters  of  Genesis.  The  discoveries 
of  Egyptology,  Assyriology,  and  palaeontology  suggest 
the  great  interval  of  time  that  must  have  separated 
early  man  from  the  first  familiar  figure  of  Hebrew 
history.  We  feel  that  we  are  moving  about  in  worlds 
unrealized.  The  outlines  are  vague ;  ages  are  repre- 
sented by  names  which  are  nothing  but  names ;  and 
when  for  a  moment  the  vagueness  defines  itself,  it 
looms  out  with  an  awful  impressiveness  but  for  a 
moment,  and  is  lost  in  shadow  again.  Even  if  we 
were  to  accept  the  Biblical  chronology  for  the  period 
between  Adam  and  Abraham,  it  is  obvious  at  a  glance 
that  the  Biblical  account  of  that  period  cannot  be 
historical  in  the  narrower  sense  at  all.  Two  millennia 
are  represented  by  hardly  half  a  dozen  incidents,  and 
when  we  begin  to  ask  ourselves  why,  the  reason  is 
not  far  to  seek.  Doubtless  this  was  not  a  period  of 
great  importance  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  Bibli- 
cal historian.  His  interest  is  with  the  elect  people  ; 
and  to  them  he  hastens  with  all  speed,  discarding 
much  within  their  history  and  nearly  all  before  it 
that  is  alien  to  his  purpose,  and  selecting  mainly  what 
is  relevant  and  illustrative  of  it.  But  there  was  the 
best  of  all  reasons  for  writing  with  brevity  concerning 


CRITICISM   AND    INSPIRATION     281 

a  period  so  early.  How  could  any  one  know  anything 
about  it? 

Gird  up  now  thy  loins  like  a  man ; 

For  I  will  demand  of  thee,  and  declare  thou  unto  me. 

Where  wast  thou  when  I  laid  the  foundations  of  the 

earth  ? 
Declare,  if  thou  hast  understanding  (Job  xxxviii.  3,  4). 

This  simple  challenge  is  the  real  answer  to  the  asser- 
tion that  in  the  account  of  the  creation  and  the 
temptation  we  are  treading  the  firm  ground  of  literal 
history.  The  truth  is  that  there  is  and  there  can  be 
no  account  of  the  scene  in  the  garden,  historical  in 
the  sense  in  which  the  account  of  the  revolution  of 
Jehu  is  historical.  It  would  be  grotesque  to  suppose 
that  the  account  was  actually  written  then ;  and  there 
is  no  claim  anywhere  made,  as  indeed  one  would  not 
expect  any,  that  the  story  is  ultimately  derived  from 
those  whose  temptation  and  fall  it  describes.  Neither 
is  any  claim  made  by  the  author — whether  Moses 
or  another  —  that  he  enjoyed  a  special  revelation 
concerning  that  particular  incident,  or  indeed  con- 
cerning any  part  of  the  period  that  lay  beyond  the 
range  of  historical  knowledge.  From  the  Hebrew 
point  of  view  the  period  is  really  prehistoric ;  and 
the  section  devoted  to  it  is,  in  part,  the  Hebrew 
attempt  to  answer  some  of  the  problems  with  which 
the  present  condition  of  the  world  confronted  them. 
Evil,  pain,  sorrow  are  ever  present  facts  in  life. 
Whence  came  they  ?  Whence  came  the  various  lan- 
guages that  so  effectually  separate  people  from  people  ? 
In  these  and  in  other  such  questions  affecting  human 


282     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

life,  every  people  that  has  reached  even  a  rudimen- 
tary stage  of  reflection  is  interested ;  and  they  answer 
the  questions  in  a  large,  naive,  imaginative  way. 
They  express,  or  rather  suggest,  their  thoughts  in  the 
language  of  poetry,  for  the  days  of  philosophy  were 
not  yet;  and  the  stories  in  which  they  embody  their 
thoughts  of  those  days  in  the  gray  past,  when  the 
gods  walked  up  and  down  among  men  upon  the  earth, 
are  commonly  known  as  myths.  As  an  index  to  the 
deeper  thoughts  of  an  early  people,  the  myth  is  of 
incomparable  value,  but  it  is  not  to  be  confused  with 
history.  It  is  a  story  with  a  moral :  the  story  is  the 
body  and  the  moral  is  the  soul.  It  is  not  the  quasi- 
historical  form,  but  the  idea  which  it  imaginatively 
embodies,  that  is  the  thing  of  real  importance. 
The  myth  has  a  contribution  to  offer  to  the  history 
of  ideas,  but  hardly  anything,  beyond  possibly  a  faint 
historical  reminiscence,  to  the  history  of  fact.  The 
facts  with  which  it  confronts  us  move  nearly  all 
within  the  realm  of  poetry,  in  which  animals  can 
speak,  and  the  gods  can  take  on  the  likeness  of 
travellers  from  a  far  country,1  and  eat  and  drink  and 
speak  with  their  earthly  friends. 

Now  if  it  should  be  found  or  supposed  that  there 
was  myth  in  Hebrew  literature,  as  there  is  in  Baby- 
lonian, Greek,  and  many  another,  would  any  one  who 
appreciated  the  facts  we  have  been  considering  have 
any  occasion  to  resent  it  ?  Facts  are  facts,  with  which 
we  must  reckon,  and  to  which  we  must  accommodate 
our  theories  ;  and  if  it  be  proved,  or  even  highly  prob- 
able, that  the  earlier  part  of  Genesis  is  not  strictly 
i  Homer,  "  Odyssey,"  xvii.  485. 


CRITICISM    AND    INSPIRATION     283 

historical,  but,  in  this  sense,  myth,  then  we  should 
simply  be  compelled  to  admit  that  the  inspiration  of 
the  Bible  is  not  inconsistent  with  the  presence  of 
myth  in  it,1  and  this  would  be  another  illustration 
of  the  principle  already  alluded  to,  that  the  Hebrew 
historians  are  more  interested  in  idea  than  in  fact.  It 
is  not  for  us  to  say  what  elements  shall  be  taken  up 
by  the  Spirit  of  God  into  the  Bible.  He  will  do  what- 
soever seemeth  good  to  Him ;  and  it  would  be  only 
natural,  if  the  material  of  revelation  should  represent 
as  many  varieties  as  the  literary  forms  in  which  that 
material  is  permanently  embodied.  Just  as  we  have 
within  the  Bible  historic  and  prophetic  prose,  lyric 
and  dramatic  poetry,  so  may  we  not  have  myth  and 
legend  and  parable  as  well  as  history  ?  It  is  a  grave 
error  to  suppose  that  myth  is  synonymous  with  lying 
or  deception  :  it  is  the  ancient  man's  way  of  talking 
of  a  remote  past,  which  explained  some  of  the  phe- 
nomena of  his  present.  Nobody  is  deceived  by  it  but 
one  who  completely  misunderstands  it ;  and  there  are 
hints  enough,  on  the  face  of  it,  that  it  is  not  to  be 
taken  as  history.  If  we  are  to  suppose  that  ani- 
mals spoke,  then  are  we  also  to  suppose  that  trees 
can  speak  ?  Jotham's  parable  maintains  that  they 
did :  and  this  is  as  much  a  warrant  for  believing  in 
the  speech  of  trees  as  Genesis  ii.  is  for  believing  in  the 

1  "  We  are  the  dupes  of  words/'  says  Bishop  Perowne,  "  when  we 
start  back  in  horror  from  the  thought  of  myth  and  legend  in  the 
Bible."  Cf.  G.  S.  Streatfeild :  "  I  cannot  but  think  that  we  owe  a  debt 
of  gratitude  to  the  modern  critic  for  making  it  so  clear  that,  in  the 
account  of  the  Creation,  the  Fall,  and  the  Flood,  we  are  not  reading 
history  in  the  strict  sense  of  that  word."  "  Expositor,"  December, 
1902,  p.  410. 


284     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

speech  of  animals.  Nobody  would  dispute  the  right 
of  parable  to  a  place  in  Scripture  ;  it  has  the  high 
sanction  of  the  Master  Himself :  and  on  what  ground 
but  that  of  prejudice  can  we  dispute  the  right  of  myth  ? 
If  through  such  ancient  forms  there  breathes  the  spirit 
of  the  living  God,  it  savors  more  of  presumption  than 
of  reverence  to  reject  them,  because  they  seem  to  us 
unworthy.  God  is  the  best  judge  ;  and  it  often  seems 
to  be  part  of  His  plan  to  choose,  for  the  execution  of 
His  purpose,  the  weak  things  of  this  world  and  the 
things  that  are  of  no  account.  The  presence  of  myth, 
then,  in  Scripture,  should  such  presence  be  proved,  is 
no  more  prejudicial  to  its  inspiration  than  the  presence 
of  inconsistencies. 

It  is  often  maintained  that  inspiration  is  a  moral 
impossibility,  if  some  of  the  books  of  the  Bible  origi- 
nated as  the  critics  claim  they  did.  This  difficulty 
has  perplexed  many  a  tender  conscience,  and  perhaps 
ought  to  have  been  taken  more  seriously  by  criticism 
than  has  usually  been  the  case.  It  is  not  an  easy 
matter  to  accept,  on  the  first  hearing,  the  critical  view 
of  Deuteronomy  as  a  production  in  the  main  of  the 
seventh  century  B.  c.,  published  during  the  ministry 
of  Jeremiah,  and  more  than  a  century  after  the  time 
of  Hosea.  It  cannot  be  denied,  in  the  light  of  its  open- 
ing words,  that  the  common  interpretation  of  the  book 
as  a  speech  delivered  by  Moses  to  Israel  at  the  conclu- 
sion of  their  wanderings  is  the  natural  one.  But  the 
opening  verses  of  the  book  constitute  only  one  of  the 
facts  ;  there  are  numerous  other  facts  in  the  course  of 
the  book,  and,  above  all,  numerous  facts  of  the  most 
serious  kind  in  other  books,  which  seem  to  many  to 


CRITICISM    AND    INSPIRATION     285 

render  the  "  natural  "  interpretation  of  the  book  abso- 
lutely impossible,  and  to  make,  with  a  probability 
amounting  to  a  practical  certainty,  for  the  critical 
view.  This  is  not  the  place  to  discuss  the  actual 
merits  of  so  complicated  a  question  ;  but  the  critics 
are  all  as  sincere  in  their  views,  and  many  of  them 
as  reverent,  as  their  opponents  in  theirs.  And  too 
often  the  concessions  which  many  critics  would  be 
prepared  to  make  are  practically  ignored  ;  as,  for  ex- 
ample, that  in  all  probability  Moses  did  actually  deliver 
a  final  exhortation  which  enforced  the  truths  that  he 
was  anxious  to  lay  upon  the  conscience  of  his  people ; 
and  this  they  can  believe,  though  they  also  believe 
that  the  speech,  in  its  present  form,  is  an  adaptation 
of  Mosaic  ideas  to  the  needs  and  perils  of  a  later  and 
more  complicated  time.  On  the  face  of  it,  the  speech 
is  not  literally  and  entirely  such  a  speech  as  Moses 
could  have  delivered ;  it  is  interrupted  on  more  occa- 
sions than  one  by  an  archaeological  note,1  which,  if  any 
one  will  take  the  trouble  to  read  the  context,  he  will 
see  to  be  simply  incredible  on  the  lips  of  Moses  on 
that  occasion,  particularly  as  it  already  implies  the 
conquest  of  Canaan  by  Israel.  This  interesting  note 
proves,  at  the  very  least,. that  the  original  book  was 
touched  by  later  hands,  and  adapted  to  the  needs  of  a 
later  generation ;  and  that  is  all  that  is  claimed  for 

1  Cf.  ii.  10-12.  "The  Emim  dwelt  therein  aforetime,  a  people  great, 
and  many,  and  tall,  as  the  Anakim  :  these  also  are  accounted  Rephaim, 
as  the  Anakim ;  but  the  Moabites  call  them  Emim.  The  Horites  also 
dwelt  in  Seir  aforetime,  but  the  children  of  Esau  succeeded  them  ;  and 
they  destroyed  them  from  before  them,  and  dwelt  in  their  stead ;  as 
Israel  did  unto  the  land  of  his  possession,  which  the  Lord  gave  unto 
them." 


286     OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

the  book  by  the  critics,  though  they  considerably  ex- 
tend the  application  of  the  principle. 

Additions  to  and  expansions  of  an  original  nucleus 
are  not  so  uncommon  in  literature  as  is  often  supposed. 
The  Rev.  Dr.  Cobern  aptly  illustrates l  the  tendency  of 
law-books  especially  to  break  their  original  bounds  ; 
and  such  a  modern  parallel  as  that  which  he  adduces 
proves  at  least  the  reasonableness,  though  it  takes 
other  considerations  to  prove  the  probability,  of  the 
critical  view  of  the  Pentateuch.  "  The  original  legis- 
lator would  naturally  impress  his  name  upon  the  whole 
body  of  laws.  Blackstone's  and  Kent's  '  Commen- 
taries '  and  Story's  '  Equity  Jurisprudence '  must 
always  go  by  these  great  names,  though  much  new 
matter  has  already  been  added  to  them.  I  think  any 
one  acquainted  with  the  facts  would  be  struck  with  the 
application  to  the  Hebrew  law-book  of  the  preface  by 
Dr.  Bigelow  to  the  thirteenth  edition  of  Story's  great 
work  mentioned  above.  He  says  :  '  In  later  editions 
a  practice  had  grown  up  of  making  changes  in  the  origi- 
nal text  and  notes  in  one  way  or  another,  generally  by 
bracketed  interpolations  .  .  .  [but]  in  process  of  time 
the  brackets  had  sometimes  moved  into  wrong  places 
or  dropped  out  altogether,  and  the  result  was  that  the 
work  of  the  author  could  not  always  be  distinguished 
from  that  of  his  editor.  .  .  .'  r  If  Moses  was  the 
founder  of  Israel's  legal  system,  there  is  nothing  to 
prevent  a  later  readaptation  of  his  laws  in  his  spirit 
being  known  by  his  name.2 

1  "Biblical  World,"  August,  1901,  pp.  108,  109. 

2  For  a  very  interesting  parallel  furnished  by  "  Alfred's  Dooms," 
see  "  The  Oxford  Hexateuch,"  vol.  i.  pp.  5,  6. 


CRITICISM    AND    INSPIRATION     287 

But  a  further  question  arises :  Do  the  speeches  of 
the  book  not  claim  to  represent  his  very  words,  whereas 
the  critical  contention  is  that  those  speeches  in  their 
present  form  are  the  composition  of  others  ?  We 
have  already  seen  that  at  the  very  least  some  of  the 
interspersed  notes  could  not  have  been  his  ;  but  with 
regard  to  the  bulk  of  the  book,  the  analogy  of  ancient 
literature,  would  again  suggest  that  the  speech,  in  spite 
of  its  introduction,  might  yet  be  the  more  or  less  free 
composition  of  a  later  historian,  on  the  basis,  no  doubt, 
of  an  older  record  and  of  actual  fact.  Much  light  is 
thrown  upon  ancient  methods  of  literary  composition 
by  an  interesting  passage  in  Thucydides,1  in  which  he 
states  the  principles  on  which  he  composed  his  history. 
"  As  to  the  various  speeches  made  on  the  eve  of  the 
war,  or  in  its  course,  I  have  found  it  difficult  to  retain 
a  memory  of  the  precise  words  which  I  heard  spoken ; 
and  so  it  was  with  those  who  brought  me  reports. 
But  I  have  made  the  persons  say  what  it  seemed  to  me 
most  opportune  for  them  to  say  in  view  of  each  situa- 
tion ;  at  the  same  time,  I  have  adhered  as  closely  as 
possible  to  the  general  sense  of  what  was  actually 
said."  This  is  the  candid  statement  of  a  historian 
who  took  the  most  scrupulous  care  in  sifting  his 
facts.  He  does  what  he  can  to  ,produce  the  substance 
of  the  speeches  ;  but  he  confesses  that  he  is  in  part 
guided  by  a  dramatic  instinct  for  probabilities.  Some- 
times, as  Prof essor  Jebb  has  pointed  out,2  his  speeches 
betray  a  distinct  consciousness  of  later  events,  and 

1  L22. 

2  In  his  instructive  Essay  in  Dr.  Evelyn  Abbott's  "Hellenica," 
p.  287  ft. 


288     OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

contain  allusions  which  would  have  been  impossible 
or  highly  improbable  on  the  occasions  on  which  they 
are  represented  as  being  delivered.  Occasionally  the 
speeches  are  little  more  than  the  dramatic  presenta- 
tion of  a  situation  on  which  the  historian  desires  to 
concentrate  his  reader's  attention.  In  any  case 
they  are  illustrations  of  the  comparative  freedom 
which  ancient  historians  allowed  themselves  in  the 
composition  of  speeches ;  and  there  is  no  reason 
in  the  nature  of  things  why  the  liberty  expressly 
claimed  by  Thucydides  may  not  be  exemplified  in 
Deuteronomy. 

With  the  Book  of  Chronicles  the  case  is  different. 
Even  if  we  allow  that  sources  other  than  the  Books  of 
Samuel  and  Kings  were  at  the  disposal  of  its  author 
or  authors,  the  very  numerous  and  extensive  parallels 
subsisting  between  these  books  and  Chronicles  put  it 
beyond  all  reasonable  doubt  that  they  constitute  the 
principal  source ;  yet  the  modifications  of  that  source 
are  not  only  numerous,  but  apparently  systematic. 
The  story  of  the  revolution  of  Jehoiada  in  Chronicles 
(2  Chr.  xxii.-xxiii.)  is  essentially  the  same  as  in  2  Kings 
xi.,  with  the  substitution  of  Levites  for  body-guard  — 
a  substitution  which,  in  the  light  of  other  facts  in  the 
book,  we  cannot  regard  as  accidental  or  insignificant. 
The  reformation  of  Josiah  takes  place,  according  to 
Chronicles,  six  years  before  the  finding  of  the  book 
upon  which,  according  to  Kings,  that  reformation  was 
based.  Very  many  facts  of  this  kind  are  revealed  by 
a  close  study  of  the  book,  most  of  them  clearly  in- 
dicative of  a  certain  attitude  and  temper.  It  may  be 
possible  —  the  critics  think  it  is  possible  —  to  explain 


CRITICISM    AND    INSPIRATION     289 

these  facts  ;  but  it  is  surely  unfair  to  explain  them 
away,  in  the  interests  of  a  theory  to  which  they  are 
inconvenient.  Any  valid  conception  of  inspiration 
will  have  to  take  account  of  them ;  and  it  is  not  im- 
possible that  a  fair  consideration  may  lead  to  the  re- 
sult that  inspiration  is  not  a  factor  equally  present 
in  all  books,  but  that  some  sustain  the  function  of 
revelation  more  directly  and  adequately  than  others. 
Were  this  to  be  admitted,  it  would  be  no  more  than 
the  Jews  themselves  admit  when  they  arrange  the 
books  of  the  Old  Testament  in  three  divisions  of 
varying  degrees  of  inspiration.  Modern  criticism  no 
doubt  gives  the  honor  to  the  prophets  which  the  Jews 
assigned  to  the  law ;  but  both  agree  in  admitting  that 
there  are  Bibles  within  the  Bible,  and  that  its  ele- 
ments vary  in  their  intrinsic  religious  worth.  The 
Old  Testament  is  not  a  monotonous  plain,  but  has  all 
the  variety  of  mountain  and  valley. 

A  difficulty  has  been  raised  by  the  so-called  pseu- 
donymous books,  that  is,  books  which  bear  a  fictitious 
name.  There  may  be  a  place  for  such  books,  but 
assuredly  not  —  it  is  argued  —  within  Scriptures  in- 
spired of  God.  Here,  again,  may  we  not  be  in  danger 
of  bringing  to  the  discussion  our  unjustified  ideas  of 
what  revelation  must  be,  of  what  it  must  include  and 
exclude,  instead  of  allowing  the  facts  to  suggest  to  us 
its  methods  and  possibilities  ?  There  is  a  multitude 
of  practically  unanswerable  arguments  for  the  late 
date  of  the  Book  of  Ecclesiastes :  in  that  case,  it  can- 
not be  from  the  hand  of  Solomon,  as  some  of  its 
words  most  naturally  lead  one  to  suppose.  But  what 
then  ?  If  the  book,  whether  by  reason  of  its  sombre 

19 


29o     OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

truth,  or  of  its  inarticulate  suggestions  of  the  need  of 
a  Redeemer,  or  for  any  other  more  adequate  reasons, 
deserves  its  place  in  the  canon,  it  cannot  forfeit  that 
place,  to  which  it  has  an  inherent  right,  because  of  its 
pseudonymous  ascription.  If  the  book  is  both  pseu- 
donymous and  independently  worthy  of  a  place  in  the 
canon,  then  we  shall  simply  have  to  admit  that  pseu- 
donymity  is  not  inconsistent  with  inspiration,  and  that 
this  literary  device  was  used  by  the  Divine  Spirit,  as 
many  others  were.  We  must  carefully  distinguish 
,  between  such  a  literary  device  and  moral  dishonesty. 
The  book  may  be  regarded  as  a  soliloquy,  fittingly 
put  into  the  lips  of  a  king,  whose  knowledge  of  the 
world  was  wide,  and  whose  name  was  a  proverb  for 
wisdom.  These  are  his  "  words,"  —  that  is,  a  dramatic 
interpretation  of  life  put  into  his  lips  by  the  gloomy 
and  almost  baffled  thinker  of  a  later  age,  whose  prob- 
lems pressed  him  sorely.  This,  is  one  of  the  com- 
monest devices  of  literature,  especially  of  poetry.  It 
is  illustrated,  for  example,  by  the  soliloquy  of  Ulysses 
in  Tennyson. 

"  I  am  a  part  of  all  that  I  have  met; 
Yet  all  experience  is  an  arch  wherethro' 
Gleams  that  untravell'd  world,  whose  margin  fades 
Forever  and  forever  when  I  move." 

Such  a  speech  the  Odysseus  of  Homer  could  not  con- 
ceivably have  uttered.  Still,  there  is  a  fine  poetic  pro- 
priety in  Tennyson's  choice  of  the  wise  and  far-travelled 
hero  to  suggest  a  particular  line  of  meditation. 

The  Book  of  Jonah  is  another  book  the  critical 
interpretation  of  which  has  given  offence  as  a  delib- 
erate attempt  to  ignore  the  miraculous.  Now,  without 


CRITICISM    AND   INSPIRATION     291 

discussing  the  incident,  round  which  an  altogether 
disproportionate  interest  has  gathered,  the  place  of 
the  book  in  the  canon  is  enough  to  suggest  where  its 
real  importance  lies.  The  book  has  the  singular  dis- 
tinction of  appearing  among  the  prophets,  in  spite  of 
its  narrative  form.  The  obvious  inference  is  that  its 
affinities  are  more  with  prophecy  than  with  history  ; 
in  other  words,  that  its  value  lies  in  its  ideas,  rather 
than  its  facts.  From  this  point  of  view  the  story  of 
the  whale,  even  if  it  were  corroborated  by  Paley's 
twelve  men  of  known  probity,  would  be  very  subordi- 
nate in  importance  to  the  majestic  ideas  of  the  book  — 
its  missionary  enthusiasm,  its  conception  of  the  long- 
suffering  and  universal  love  of  God,  which  embraces 
Nineveh  as  well  as  Palestine,  and  stretches  down  in 
pity  even  to  the  animal  creation.  We  have  already 
seen  that  ideas  were  more  to  the  Hebrew  historian 
than  facts ;  and  when  we  find  a  quasi-narrative  book 
taking  its  place  alongside  of  others  whose  business 
is  not  to  narrate,  but  to  bring  home  to  the  indolent 
consciences  of  men  the  mighty  truths  of  God,  we  are 
left  with  no  alternative  but  to  emphasize  the  prophetic 
element  of  the  book  rather  than  the  narrative. 

(iii)  The  scientific,  historical,  and  literary  aspects 
of  the  Bible  have  been  briefly  considered,  and  certain 
phenomena  have  been  pointed  out  with  which  any 
theory  of  inspiration  will  have  to  reckon.  What  is  to 
be  said  of  the  morality  of  the  Bible  ?  Here  we  seem, 
at  first  sight,  to  be  on  less  debatable  ground ;  but  no 
sooner  do  we  pass  from  generalities  to  the  examina- 
tion of  detail,  than  we  are  confronted  with  some  stub- 
born facts,  of  which  only  one  or  two  need  be  here 


292     OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

recalled.  A  blessing  is  pronounced  on  Jael  for  an 
act  which,  brave  and  patriotic  as  it  was,  involved 
a  breach  of  one  of  the  fundamental  principles  of  Ori- 
ental morality  —  the  law  of  hospitality.  The  Mosaic 
law  of  divorce  was  abrogated  by  Christ  Himself,  just 
as  the  temper  of  the  prophet  Elijah  was  rebuked  by 
Him.  Most  of  all  is  the  modern  Christian  sense 
startled  by  the  imprecatory  tone  of  some  of  the 
psalms,  even  of  some  of  the  utterances  of  the  tender- 
hearted Jeremiah. 

Let  his  children  be  fatherless, 
And  his  wife  a  widow, 
Let  his  children  be  vagabonds,  and  beg, 
And  let  them  seek  their  bread  out  of  their  desolate  places, 
Let  there  be  none  to  extend  mercy  unto  him. 
Neither  let  there  be  any  to  have  pity  on  his  fatherless 
children  (Ps.  cix.  9-12.     Cf.  Jer.  xviii.  19-23). 

This  does  not  look  as  if  it  could  be  one  of  the  rules 
of  faith  and  conduct.  It  is  rebuked  and  repudiated  in 
the  gospel  of  Him  who  told  His  followers  to  do  good 
to  them  that  used  them  despitefully,  and  who  prayed, 
on  His  cross,  u  Father,  forgive  them ;  for  they  know 
not  what  they  do."  The  precepts  and  examples  of 
the  Old  Testament,  however  intelligible  they  may  be 
in  the  light  of  history,  are  clearly  not  all  of  such  a 
nature  as  to  command  the  homage  of  the  enlightened 
Christian  conscience,  so  that  inspiration  does  not 
guarantee  the  unimpeachable  perfection  of  the  moral- 
ity of  the  Old  Testament  in  all  its  parts. 

(iv)  No  more  does  it  guarantee  the  uniform  purity 
of  all  its  religious  conceptions.    In  the  earliest  sources, 


CRITICISM   AND    INSPIRATION     293 

for  example,  God  is  found  in  fashion  as  a  man.  He 
walks  about  the  garden  in  the  cool  of  the  day ;  He 
shuts  the  door  of  the  ark  behind  Noah ;  He  comes 
down  from  heaven  to  see  the  city  and  the  tower  which 
the  children  of  men  had  built ;  He  partakes  the  hos- 
pitality of  Abraham  His  friend.  There  is  a  splendid, 
healthy  reality  about  this  intense  anthropomorphism. 
Only  men  who  believed  in  God  with  all  their  souls 
could  have  so  spoken  or  written  of  Him.  But  such 
a  conception  is  hardly  a  spiritual  one ;  and,  indeed, 
we  can  see  it  in  the  Old  Testament  gradually  disen- 
gaging itself  more  and  more  from  its  material  ele- 
ments. One  striking  passage  in  Exodus  xxiv.  9-11, 
says  of  the  company  on  the  mountain  that  they  beheld 
God,  and  did  eat  and  drink.  In  Deuteronomy,  which 
criticism  assigns  to  a  later  period,  the  spirituality  of 
God  is  emphasized  in  such  a  fashion  as  to  suggest 
almost  a  tacit  correction  of  the  older  form  of  the 
story.  u  Jehovah  spake  unto  you  out  of  the  midst 
of  the  fire :  ye  heard  the  voice  of  words,  but  ye  saw 
no  form ;  only  ye  heard  a  voice.  .  .  .  Take  ye  there- 
fore good  heed  unto  yourselves ;  for  ye  saw  no  manner 
of  form  on  the  day  that  Jehovah  spake  unto  you  in 
Horeb  out  of  the  midst  of  the  fire  "  (iv.  12,  15). 
An  early  source  represents  God  as  speaking  to  Moses 
face  to  face,  as  a  man  speaketh  to  his  friend  (Ex. 
xxxiii.  11)  ;  according  to  another  source  within  the 
same  chapter  that  was  impossible  :  Thou  canst  not  see 
my  face :  for  man  shall  not  see  me  and  live  (verse  20). 
In  the  light  of  such  passages  —  and  they  could  be  in- 
definitely multiplied — it  would  be  idle  to  deny  that 
religious  conceptions  underwent  a  change.  God  had 


294     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

many  things  to  say  to  the  people  of  Israel,  but  He 
could  not  say  them  all  in  1200  B.  c.  The  people  could 
not  have  borne  them  then.  When  Israel  was  a  child, 
God  taught  him  to  walk.  He  led  Israel  to  more  ade- 
quate thoughts  of  Himself  by  that  gentle  and  gradual 
process  which  marks  the  divine  dealings  with  men. 
When  Israel  was  a  child,  he  spoke  as  a  child,  even 
about  God.  He  spoke  with  all  the  earnest  simplicity 
and  vivid  imagination  of  childhood.  When  he  became 
a  man,  he  learned  to  think  deeper  thoughts,  though  he 
never  forgot  that  such  knowledge  was  ultimately  too 
wonderful  for  him,  and  that  no  man  by  searching  can 
find  out  God  to  perfection. 

It  is  along  these  lines  that  criticism  has  done  its 
work.  Its  peculiar  province  is  to  deal  with  the  Bible 
on  the  side  of  its  humanity,  and  it  has  discovered  in 
many  directions  numberless  proofs  of  that  humanity 
in  its  imperfection  as  well  as  in  its  fascination.  It 
has  found  the  natural  science  of  the  Bible  to  share 
many  of  the  ideas  of  the  ancient  East,  its  history  to  be 
not  uniformly  self-consistent,  its  moral  and  religious 
conceptions  to  be  progressive.  It  has  treated  the 
Bible  like  any  other  book,  and  the  result  has  been  the 
disclosure  of  these  indubitable  facts. 

But  are  these  all  the  facts  ?  The  Bible  needs  no 
favor  from  its  investigators,  but  it  has  a  right  to  de- 
mand justice  ;  and  one  who  saw  no  more  in  the  Bible 
than  such  facts  as  these  to  which  we  have  called  at- 
tention, would  have  missed  its  whole  purpose,  and 
grotesquely  failed  to  account  for  its  undying  influence 
on  humanity.  For  more  obvious  than  the  differences 
between  the  books,  and  the  difficulties  raised  by  some 


CRITICISM   AND    INSPIRATION     295 

of  them,  is  the  great  unity  which  binds  them  all 
together,  and  justifies  us  in  speaking  of  this  large  and 
diversified  literature  as  a  Bible,  a  single  book.  No 
other  race  "  has  left  on  the  ear  of  humanity  so  definite 
an  impression  of  a  single  voice."  1  From  many  points 
of  a  large  circumference  every  section  of  the  literature 
finds  its  way  to  a  common  centre,  and  that  centre  is 
God.  Immanuel  is  the  motto  of  the  Bible,  as  well 
as  the  name  of  the  Messiah :  God  with  us  —  in  war- 
riors and  prophets,  in  psalmists  and  sages,  in  rite  and 
ceremony.  God  is  the  stupendous  fact  of  the  Bible ; 
and  while  there  is  a  revelation  of  Him  in  men,  in  their 
words,  their  aspirations,  their  institutions,  and  while 
it  is  on  these  things  that  the  critic  and  historian,  as 
such,  concentrate  themselves,  it  is  not  with  these,  but 
with  the  God  who  thus  reveals  Himself,  that  the 
religious  man  is  primarily  concerned. 

It  is  a  commonplace  to  say  that  the  Bible  is  a 
religious  book  ;  but  it  is  really  a  fact  of  unique  signifi- 
cance. Why  should  no  other  literature  betray  just 
this  kind  of  unity  ?  And  why  should  Hebrew  litera- 
ture, out  of  an  immense  mass  of  songs,  annals,  histo- 
ries, and  poems,  to  which  it  occasionally  alludes,  have 
selected  just  those  things  which  produce  this  impres- 
sion of  unity  ?  By  briefly  examining  the  Bible  in  the 
light  of  its  tendencies  and  interests  as  indicated  alike 
by  what  it  contains  and  what  it  omits,  we  may  win 
some  clearer  perception  of  its  own  purpose,  and  so  be 
the  more  able  to  estimate  the  effect  of  criticism  upon 
that. 

Take,  for  example,  the  story  of  the  Fall.  Whatever 
i  Julia  Wedgwood,  "  The  Message  of  Israel,"  p.  21. 


296     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

else  that  is,  it  is  primarily  a  moral  history.  Whether 
it  does  or  does  not  represent  a  single  fact  occurring  at 
a  definite  point  of  time,  it  assuredly  represents  an 
eternal  fact,  re-enacting  itself  anew  in  the  experience 
of  every  new  soul  that  cometh  into  the  world.  It 
would  be  impossible  to  exaggerate  its  psychological 
truth.  As  a  statement  of  the  origin,  essence,  and 
consequences  of  sin,  it  will  stand  as  long  as  the 
world.  Every  age  will  find  there  its  own  tragic  ex- 
perience reflected.  The  story  shakes  the  conscience  : 
it  suggests  the  inalienable  responsibility  of  man,  the 
awfulness  of  estrangement  from  God,  and  the  curse 
which  He  pronounces  upon  sin.  If  that  is  what  it 
does,  we  may  assume  that  that  is  what  it  was  meant  to 
do ;  and  nothing  that  criticism  can  say  about  the  story 
can  alter  its  power  to  do  that. 

Or  take  the  story  of  the  Flood.  Here  again  the 
moral  interest  is  undoubtedly  predominant.  What 
the  dimensions  of  the  ark  were,  and  how  long  the  flood 
lasted,  are  of  no  consequence  at  all  in  the  light  of  the 
majestic  truths  which  the  story  was  written,  or  at 
least  adapted,  to  illustrate.  It  teaches  with  a  power 
that  is  weirdly  grand  the  fearfulness  of  sin  in  the 
sight  of  the  Creator,  who  would  rather  see  His  fair 
world  desolated  by  a  flood  than  peopled  by  men,  the 
thoughts  of  whose  hearts  were  only  evil  continually. 
It  illustrates  also  the  pity  as  well  as  the  justice  of 
God.  In  this  case  the  teaching  which  the  narrative 
was  intended  to  convey  is  not  only  not  shattered,  but 
strongly  corroborated  by  criticism.  For  we  are  fortu- 
nate in  having  a  Babylonian  counterpart  to  this  story ; 
and,  by  comparing  the  two,  we  can  easily  learn  what 


CRITICISM   AND    INSPIRATION     297 

constitutes  the  distinction  of  the  Hebrew  version  of 
the  story.  There  is  much  that  is  vivid  and  beautiful 
in  the  Babylonian  story.  For  example,  when  the 
return  of  the  seventh  day  had  brought  calm  after 
the  six  days  and  nights  of  storm,  Par-napishtim,  the 
hero  of  the  Babylonian  story,  says :  "  I  opened  a  win- 
dow, and  the  light  fell  upon  my  face"  —  a  passage 
which,  for  vividness,  reminds  one  of  the  "  Ancient 
Mariner."  But  both  in  its  statements  and  in  its 
omissions  the  Babylonian  story  is  separated  by  the 
whole  length  of  a  moral  world  from  the  Hebrew 
story.  When,  for  example,  Par-napishtim  built  an 
altar  and  offered  sacrifice,  the  gods  smelt  the  savour, 
and  "  gathered  like  flies  over  the  sacrificer."  The 
Hebrew  story  touches  this  very  closely  (Gen.  viii.  21). 
Yet  what  a  difference!  It  is  monotheism  against 
polytheism,  the  simplicity  of  a  moral  religion  against 
the  extravagances  of  superstition.  Moral  purpose, 
which  is  barely  suggested  in  the  Babylonian  story, 
rings  throughout  the  whole  of  the  Hebrew  story.  In 
religious  dignity,  power,  and  truth  there  can  be  simply 
no  thought  of  comparison  between  the  two.  "  The  dif- 
ference," says  Gunk  el,  "  is  immense.  The  polytheism, 
which  is  so  strikingly  prominent  in  the  Babylonian 
story,  has  completely  fallen  away  in  the  Israel itish 
tradition.  .  .  .  There  is  nothing  in  the  Babylonian 
story  of  that  profound  sense  of  sin  with  which  the 
Hebrew  bows  before  the  judgment  of  God.  .  .  .  How 
immeasurably  superior,  therefore,  is  the  Hebrew  story 
to  the  Babylonian !  Shall  we  not  then  be  glad  that 
we  have  found  in  this  Babylonian  parallel  a  criterion 
to  estimate  the  height  of  Israel's  thought  concerning 


298     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

God,  which  is  powerful   enough  thus  to  purify  and 
transform  what  is  strangest  and  most  repulsive." 1 

This  impression  is  confirmed  by  a  study  of  all  the 
Babylonian  parallels  to  the  stories  of  Genesis  i.-xi. 
The  question  then  naturally  arises :  How,  on  the  basis 
of  the  same  literary  material,  is  this  "  immeasurable  " 
difference  to  be  accounted  for  ?  and  the  only  adequate 
answer  is,  that  here  is  the  finger  of  God.  The  in- 
spiration of  Genesis  i.-xi.,  at  least,  ceases  to  be  a 
debatable  question  to  one  who  has  taken  the  trouble 
to  compare  the  Hebrew  stories  with  their  Babylonian 
parallels;  and  the  difference  lies  within  the  moral 
and  religious  sphere.  The  grossness,  the  superstition, 
the  moral  purposelessness  of  the  one  are  matched  by 
the  earnestness,  the  truth,  the  dignity  of  the  other. 
Here,  then,  is  a  section  which  is  inspired,  if  the  word 
"  inspiration "  means  anything  at  all.  Without  at- 
tempting to  define  inspiration  —  though  we  need  not 
altogether  believe  with  Erasmus  that  every  definition 
is  a  misfortune  —  we  have  yet  to  acknowledge  here 
the  presence  of  the  thing  itself.  The  breath  of  another 
life  is  upon  it.  Mere  human  genius  alone  could  not 
have  made  it  what  it  is ;  for  it  was  a  people  of  no 
mean  genius  from  whom  the  parallel  story  came. 
And  to  urge  that  the  Hebrews  had  a  special  aptitude 
for  religion  is  only  to  ignore  the  mystery  of  person- 
ality, and  to  answer  its  difficulties  with  a  sounding 
phrase.  The  "  immeasurable  "  difference  is  adequately 
accounted  for  only  by  the  controlling  presence  of  a 
factor  in  the  one  which  was  absent,  or  all  but  absent, 
from  the  other.  If  religion  and  morality  mean  any- 

1  "  Handkommentar  zum  Alten  Testament,"  Genesis,  p.  66. 


CRITICISM    AND    INSPIRATION     299 

thing  at  all,  and  if  the  world's  chief  task  is  to  learn 
what  they  do  mean,  the  facts  we  have  been  consider- 
ing show  that  one  of  these  peoples  is  qualified  to 
teach  it,  while  the  other  is  not.  Therein  lies  Israel's 
uniqueness.  To  those  who  believe  that  God  is  in  His 
world  and  that  history  has  a  purpose,  do  not  the  facts 
themselves  suggest  that  this  people,  or  at  any  rate 
the  leaders  of  her  religious  thought,  were  moved  by 
God  in  some  mysterious  way  to  utter  the  truth  about 
Him  —  a  truth  which  grew  indeed  in  clearness  and 
purity,  but  which  from  an  early  time  was  powerful 
enough  to  assimilate  and  adapt  to  its  own  high  ends 
the  indifferent  and  sometimes  unpromising  material 
of  common  Semitic  story  ? l 

With  the  hints  derived  from  a  comparative  study 
of  Hebrew  and  Babylonian  tales,  we  have  but  to  con- 
tinue our  advance  through  the  Old  Testament  to  find 
the  presence  of  the  same  spirit  as  the  early  Hebrew 
stories  manifest  —  a  presence  not  always  so  power- 
fully felt,  or  so  attractively  embodied,  but  on  the 
whole  the  presence  of  a  Spirit  with  the  same  horror 
of  sin,  the  same  passion  for  righteousness,  the  same 
yearning  to  redeem.  In  no  part  of  the  Old  Testament 
is  that  presence  so  imperious  and  unmistakable  as  in 
the  prophets.  If  ever  there  were  men  who  felt  that 

1  For  a  detailed  presentation  of  the  argument  in  the  two  preceding 
paragraphs,  see  Kyle's  admirable  book  on  "  The  Early  Narratives  of 
Genesis."  Very  interesting  in  this  connection  is  the  confession  of 
Professor  Hilprecht,  than  whom  no  man  speaks  with  more  authority 
on  this  matter  :  "As  the  attempt  has  recently  been  made  to  trace  the 
pure  monotheism  of  Israel  to  Babylonian  sources,  I  am  bound  to  de- 
clare this  an  absolute  impossibility,  on  the  basis  of  my  fourteen  years' 
researches  in  Babylonian  cuneiform  inscriptions."  Quoted  from  "  Der 
Alte  Glaube"  in  "  The  Sunday  School  Times,"  March  21,  1903. 


3oo     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

they  were  not  their  own,  but  the  servants  of  Another, 
these  men  were  the  prophets.  Perhaps  there  is 
nothing  in  literature  so  amazing  as  this  phenomenon 
of  the  prophetic  consciousness.  It  defies  analysis  and 
even  explanation,  unless  on  the  view  on  which  the 
most  original  of  the  prophets  themselves  continually 
insisted  —  that  they  were  called  by  God  to  the  special 
service  of  uttering  His  truth,  and  inspired  by  Him 
with  the  truth  they  were  to  utter.  How  the  call  and 
the  inspiration  were  psychologically  mediated  we  do 
not  and  cannot  know ;  but  that  they  were  tremendous 
facts,  no  one  who  is  even  superficially  familiar  with 
the  pages  of  prophecy  can  for  a  moment  doubt. 
Neither  the  one  nor  the  other  can  be  adequately  ex- 
plained simply  as  the  result  of  an  inner  development. 
The  prophets  were  not  ambitious  men  who  sought 
popularity,  and  created  the  call  to  which  they  re- 
sponded. It  was  another  voice  than  that  of  their  own 
hearts  that  they  heard,  and  often  they  heard  it  with 
misgiving  and  dismay.  They  could  not  go,  they  said  ; 
one,  because  he  was  a  poor  speaker,  another  because 
he  was  but  a  child,  another  because  his  lips  were  not 
pure,  and  so  on.  But  they  cannot  help  themselves. 
They  are  borne  on  by  an  irresistible  impulse.  Je- 
hovah took  me  and  said,  Gro  and  prophesy  (Amos  vii. 
15).  That  is  all.  When  the  lion  roars,  who  is  not 
afraid?  When  Jehovah  speaks,  who  can  help  proph- 
esying? (iii.  8).  They  feel,  as  it  were,  a  strong  hand 
laid  upon  them  (Is.  viii.  11),  and  in  that  constraint 
they  speak. 

And  as  it  was  Another  who  called  them,  so  it  is 
Another's  words  they  speak.     Jehovah  said  unto  me. 


CRITICISM    AND    INSPIRATION     301 

They  may  try  to  repress  it,  but  it  refuses  to  be  re- 
pressed. It  is  as  a  fire  shut  up  within  their  bones 
(Jer.  xx.  9),  and  it  burns  its  way  out  into  flaming 
utterance.  Their  chief  task  is,  in  an  age  of  time- 
serving and  superstition,  to  declare  to  Jacob  his  trans- 
gression, and  to  Israel  his  sin  (Micah  iii.  8).  They  are 
as  the  voice  of  God  to  an  ungrateful  and  immoral 
people.  But  besides  this,  or  perhaps  as  part  of  this, 
they  occasionally  show  a  strange  power  to  interpret 
the  meaning  of  events,  and  to  forecast  in  great  crises 
the  more  immediate  future.  It  is  more  than  political 
insight ;  they  themselves  would  have  scorned  such  an 
explanation.  It  was  not  so  much  a  conviction  that 
grew  up  within  them  —  though  it  may  have  been 
partly  that  —  as  a  voice  from  without  that  came  upon 
them.  It  was  not  they  that  spoke,  but  the  spirit  that 
spoke  in  them.  They  were  riot  led  to  their  utterances 
by  the  logic  of  events,  though  of  these  events  none 
were  keener  observers  than  they.  God  spoke,  and 
they  could  not  help  prophesying  any  more  than  they 
could  help  being  called.  "  The  distinguishing  char- 
acteristic of  the  prophets,  first  of  their  speech  and 
action,  and  afterwards  of  their  writings,  was  the  firm 
and  unwavering  belief  that  they  were  instruments  or 
organs  of  the  Most  High,  and  that  the  thoughts  which 
arose  in  their  minds  about  Him  and  His  Will,  and 
the  commands  and  exhortations  which  they  issued  in 
His  Name,  really  came  at  His  prompting,  and  were 
really  invested  with  His  authority."  *  Now,  if  there 
were  nothing  more  than  this  sense  of  divine  posses- 
sion, it  might  be  disposed  of  as  the  outcome  of 
1  Sanday,  "  Inspiration,"  p.  394. 


302     OLD    TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

ecstasy,  and  relegated  to  the  domain  of  an  antiquated 
Orientalism.  But  when  we  look  at  the  character  of 
the  men  thus  possessed  and  at  the  quality  of  their 
work ;  when  we  think  of  their  conception  of  God, 
with  its  unmatched  blend  of  dignity,  purity,  justice, 
and  pity ;  when  we  remember  how  their  grasp  and 
expression  of  the  elemental  truths  of  religion  stands 
after  centuries  unrivalled,  —  we  are  bound  to  confess 
that  the  zeal  which  consumed  them  was  equalled 
by  their  sanity.  Their  message,  though  spoken  in 
Hebrew  words,  is  a  message  for  the  universal  heart ; 
for,  though  they  dealt  for  the  most  part  with  specific 
issues,  they  dealt  with  them  in  the  light  of  the  eternal 
and  unchangeable  truth  of  God. 

Inspiration  may  be  difficult  to  define,  but  the  fact 
is  impossible  to  ignore,  whether  we  regard  the  express 
testimony  of  the  prophets  that  they  received  their 
words  from  God,  or  the  indirect  testimony  of  the 
earlier  part  of  Scripture  to  the  presence  of  a  spirit 
which  effectually  differentiates  Hebrew  literature  from 
others  to  which  it  is  akin.  This  spirit,  which  is  the 
spirit  of  God,  determines  the  point  of  view  from 
which  all  things  are  considered.  They  may  be  inter- 
esting for  other  reasons ;  but  they  stand  in  the  Bible, 
because  they  are  religiously  interesting.  Once  we 
grasp  this  clearly,  neither  inconsistencies  nor  even 
conceivable  inaccuracies  in  the  historical  books  will 
give  us  trouble  any  more.  These  things  lie  upon  the 
surface,  they  do  not  touch  the  soul.  The  two  great 
prophetic  documents  at  the  basis  of  the  Pentateuch, 
for  example,  differ  perceptibly  in  language,  in  theo- 
logical conceptions,  in  other  things ;  but  in  the  spirit 


CRITICISM    AND    INSPIRATION     303 

that  animates  them,  and  in  their  interpretation  of 
Israel's  past,  they  are  absolutely  at  one.  They  both 
read  in  the  history  the  progressive  march  of  God's 
purpose.  God  with  Israel  —  always  in  love  and  often 
in  chastisement  —  is  the  theme  of  both.  Another 
illustration  on  a  small  scale,  of  the  essential  unanim- 
ity of  the  Biblical  writers  amid  many  not  unimpor- 
tant differences,  is  to  be  found  in  the  three  comments 
on  the  fall  of  Samaria  in  2  Kings  xvii.  Characteris- 
tically very  little  is  said  of  the  historical  fact,  im- 
portant though  it  was ;  but  the  religious  comment  is 
varied  and  ample.  By  successive  writers  "  the  fall  of 
the  northern  kingdom  is  seized  upon  as  a  vivid,  nay 
terrible,  illustration  of  the  ways  of  God  with  Israel. 
Verses  18,  21-23  find  the  sin  of  Israel  to  consist  in 
'  walking  in  all  the  sins  of  Jeroboam.'  Verses  7-20, 
except  18,  trace  the  calamity  to  more  specific  sources, 
like  star-worship  and  the  neglect  of  the  prophetic 
word.  In  a  later  passage  still,  34  b-40,  the  fall  of 
the  kingdom  is  ascribed  to  the  neglect  of  the  written 
word.  The  chapter  shows  impressively  how  the  fall 
of  the  northern  kingdom  haunted  the  minds  and  im- 
aginations of  men  who  believed  in  the  divine  discipline 
of  Israel,  and  how  by  different  ways  they  arrived  at 
the  conclusion  that  it  corroborated  divine  justice." l 

As  soon,  then,  as  the  dominant  religious  purpose  of 
the  Bible  comes  clearly  into  view,  all  the  difficulties 
which  have  been  the  stock-in-trade  of  the  scorner  from 
time  immemorial  fall  into  their  proper  place  of  com- 
parative insignificance.  From  this  point  of  view, 
which  is  the  Bible's  own,  it  is  time  and  labor  lost  to 
1  See  my  "  Messages  of  the  Historians,"  pp.  97,  98. 


3o4     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

discuss  how  the  serpent  could  have  been  erect  before 
the  curse  upon  him,  or  whether  animals  could  ever 
have  spoken,  or  what  was  the  length  and  elevation  of 
the  Mesopotamian  plain.1  What  we  ought  to  concern 
ourselves  with  is  what  those  naratives  have  to  teach  us 
of  sin,  of  the  world,  of  man,  of  God.  It  is  foolish  to 
make  merry  over  such  difficulties  as  how  in  Genesis  ii. 
man  was  made  before  the  animals,  while  in  Genesis  i. 
the  order  is  reversed ;  but  it  is  equally  a  sign  of  little 
faith  and  understanding  to  be  afraid  of  these  difficul- 
ties. The  student  who  reads  the  Bible  in  the  spirit  in 
which  it  was  written,  will  dwell  rather  on  the  truth 
they  share  in  common.  Both  sources  agree  alike  that 
man  and  animals  were  created  by  God,  and  both 
emphasize,  though  in  different  ways,2  the  altogether 
unique  position  of  man  in  relation  to  his  maker.  It 
is  the  duty  of  the  reader  to  "  penetrate  through  narra- 
tives which  ignore  and  belie  each  other  to  a  central 
truth  which  glows  through  each."  3  Divergences  are 
of  great  value  in  enabling  us  to  discover  the  stand- 
point and  the  interests  of  the  various  authors,  but 
almost  more  as  suggesting  that  no  undue  stress  is  to 
be  laid  upon  the  words  themselves.  If  a  fact  which 
one  would  suppose  must  have  been  so  familiar  as  the 
superscription  on  the  cross  can  be  rendered  by  the 
evangelists  in  four  different  ways,  it  is  surely  clear 
that  inspiration  does  not  guarantee  verbal  accuracy. 
It  is  very  plain  that  the  New  Testament  writers, 

1  This  last  point  has  played  a  part  in  the  discussion  of  the  Flood 
story.    Cf.  Huxley,  "  Nineteenth  Century,"  July,  1890,  with  Gladstone's 
reply  in  the  last  chapter  of  "  The  Impregnable  Rock  of  Holy  Scripture.'* 

2  Gen.  i.  27  and  ii.  7. 

»  Julia  Wedgwood,  "The  Message  of  Israel,"  p.  18. 


CRITICISM    AND    INSPIRATION     305 

as  a  rule,  laid  little  stress  upon  pedantic  precision.1 
Their  quotations  are  often  from  the  Septuagint  rather 
than  from  the  Hebrew  text :  sometimes  they  agree 
neither  with  the  Hebrew  nor  with  the  Septuagint ;  and 
once  or  twice  the  argument  depends  upon  the  Septua- 
gint, even  where  that  is  a  mistranslation.2  This  may 
be  very  unlike  what  we  should  expect,  but  we  must 
learn  to  conform  our  expectations  to  the  facts;  and 
these  teach  us,  at  the  least,  how  little  importance 
attaches  to  the  words.  We  must  pierce  behind  the 
words  to  the  spirit,  which  no  words  can  perfectly 
express. 

This  is  a  point  of  great  importance,  and  the  Bible 
becomes  a  new  book  to  the  man  who  clearly  grasps  it. 
Scripture  is  not  merely,  as  it  is  often  called,  a  record 
of  revelation :  it  is  itself  a  revelation  of  the  spirits  of 
the  men  who  wrote  it.  The  historical  books,  besides 
recording  the  history,  reveal  the  faith  of  the  historians. 
The  books  are  a  testimony  to  the  splendid  faith  which 
inspired  their  interpretation  of  the  past,  no  less  than 
their  outlook  upon  the  future.  Everything  contributes 
to  the  divine  purpose.  The  foreign  Cyrus  is  even 
spoken  of  as  Jehovah's  Messiah  (Is.  xlv.  1),  which 
shows  how  generous  as  well  as  comprehensive  is  the 
Biblical  conception  of  history.  No  movement  or  event 


1  The  subject  of  Old  Testament  quotations  in  the  New  can  be  very 
conveniently  studied  in  Hiihn's  "  Die  messianischen  Weissagungen," 
II.  Teil ;  and  Dittmar's  "  Vetus  Testamentum  in  Novo,"  in  two  parts, 
the  first  containing  the  references  in  the  Gospels  and  Acts  published  in 
1899,  the  second  promised  for  this  year  (1903). 

2  Cf.  Heb.  x.  5.    "  A  body  didst  thou  prepare  for  me."     In  Psalm 
zL  6  the  corresponding  words  in  the  Hebrew  mean,  "  Ears  hast  thou 
digged  for  me." 

20 


306     OLD   TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

in  the  past  had  been  by  accident.  The  movement 
which  brought  Abraham  from  Babylonia  to  Canaan 
was  due  to  a  divine  impulse.  He  had  not  merely  wan- 
dered westward  :  according  to  one  source,  it  was  God 
that  had  caused  him  to  wander  (Gen.  xx.  13)  ;  ac- 
cording to  another,  Jehovah  had  said  to  him,  Get  thee 
out  of  thy  native  land  (Gen.  xii.  1).  Neither  was  it 
any  accident  that  took  Israel  to  Egypt :  it  was  God 
who  had  sent  them  there  for  discipline,  that,  having 
tasted  the  bitterness  of  bondage,  they  might  know  the 
gladness  of  redemption.  And  so  on  through  all  the 
history,  which  is  always  immeasurably  more  than  a 
passionless  record  of  objective  fact.  It  is  a  window 
into  the  soul  of  the  historian,  through  which  we  see 
how  mighty  a  faith  inspired  him  in  God  as  the  Lord 
of  history,  guiding  it  evermore  to  a  divine  event.  No 
criticism  of  detail  can  in  the  least  affect  the  significance 
of  the  history  as  a  reflex  of  the  author's  faith  ;  and 
this  would  still  remain  to  instruct  and  inspire,  even 
did  that  history  present  more  difficulties  than  it  does. 
Inspiration  is,  as  its  etymology  suggests,  a  thing  of  the 
spirit,  and  its  primary  operation  was  upon  the  spirits 
of  living  men.  The  men  were  inspired,  rather  than 
the  books  ;  and  if  the  books,  then  the  books  through 
the  men.  The  difference,  for  example,  between  the 
Hebrew  and  the  Babylonian  stories  was  ultimately 
the  result  of  an  action  of  the  Spirit  of  God  upon 
the  spirits  of  particular  men. 

The  purpose  of  the  Bible  can  be  inferred,  as  we  have 
seen,  from  the  character  of  its  contents.  It  introduces 
the  spirit  of  an  ethical  religion  into  Semitic  tales  from 
which  that  spirit  was  practically  absent ;  and  it  ignores, 


CRITICISM    AND    INSPIRATION     307 

as  foreign  to  its  purpose,  very  much  of  the  historical 
detail  which  would  have  been  of  the  highest  interest 
and  value  to  us.  In  other  words,  the  book  is  written 
for  the  sake  of  the  religion  which  it  enshrines ;  and 
it  is  no  doubt  intended,  as  it  is  fitted,  to  inspire  its 
readers  with  the  spirit  which  animates  itself.  That 
this  was  its  purpose,  or  at  any  rate  was  felt  to  be  one 
of  its  effects,  may  be  gathered  from  the  occasional 
praises  of  Scripture  that  are  scattered  throughout  both 
Testaments.  Besides  the  famous  testimony  to  its 
power  to  reprove,  correct,  exhort,  and  instruct,  and 
besides  Paul's  explicit  statement  of  its  character  as 
fitted  to  inspire  us  with  hope  through  patience  and 
comfort,1  there  are  even  in  the  Old  Testament  splendid 
and  elaborate  tributes  to  the  value  of  such  Scriptures 
as  were  then  known  —  tributes  which  teach  us  what 
were  the  elements  in  Scripture  that  constituted  its 
worth  and  power  to  those  who  were  most  familiar  with 
it.  The  Psalter  opens  with  its  simple  assurance  that 
the  man  in  whose  heart  the  Scriptures  are  will  be  able 
to  keep  his  feet  when  the  storms  of  judgment  drive 
the  chaff  away.  Perhaps  in  no  part  of  the  Bible  is  its 
moral  and  religious  function  so  clearly  and  lovingly 
expressed  as  in  the  nineteenth  and  the  one  hundred 
and  nineteenth  psalms.  The  law  of  Jehovah  gladdens 
the  heart,  and  lightens  the  eyes :  it  is  finer  than  gold 
and  honey.  And  it  is  all  this,  because  it  is  right  and 
pure,  and  clean  and  true.  It  brings  the  soul  home  and 
makes  the  simple  wise.  It  brings  one  who  feels  that 
he  is  a  stranger  upon  the  earth  into  blessedness  and 
peace  and  fellowship  with  the  most  high  God :  it  pre- 
1  Rom.  xv.  4. 


3o8     OLD    TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

serves  him  from  pride  and  falsehood,  and  is  as  a  light 
shining  upon  the  dark  path  of  his  earthly  days. 

Utterances  like  these  show  what  it  was  in  the  Bible 
that  interested  and  attracted  its  earliest  students,  as 
the  authors  of  such  psalms  may  without  impropriety 
be  called.  Their  Torah,  or  Law,  of  Jehovah  consisted 
of  many  things ;  but  when  they  come  to  sing  its  praises, 
it  is  as  a  moral  and  religious  force  that  it  is  sung.  It 
is  great,  and  worthy  to  be  praised,  because  it  makes 
for  morality  and  God.  "  The  Bible,"  says  Myers,  "  is 
concerned  with  the  formation  of  man's  character 
through  the  exhibition  of  God's."  1  That  character 
is  proclaimed  by  the  prophets,  it  is  suggested  by  the 
legislation,  it  shines  throughout  the  history.  In  every 
form  of  its  presentation  it  makes  its  eloquent  appeal 
to  the  hardened  hearts  of  men,  that,  in  the  language 
of  the  New  Testament,  they  may  become  children  of 
their  Father  who  is  in  heaven.  It  is  precisely  this 
moral  and  religious  power  that  is  ascribed  to  it  in 
psalms  like  these ;  and  they  thus  explicitly  corroborate 
what  the  general  contents  of  the  Scriptures  themselves 
suggest,  that  Scripture  was  preserved,  as  it  was  written, 
for  moral  and  religious  ends ;  and  within  that  sphere 
lies  its  special  inspiration. 

Here,  of  course,  questions  of  extreme  difficulty  are 
raised.  It  may  be  urged,  on  the  one  hand,  that  all 
parts  of  Scripture  do  not  possess  this  power  equally  ; 
and,  on  the  other,  that  other  books,  both  ancient  and 
modern,  also  possess  it  in  no  inconsiderable  measure. 
In  that  case,  what  becomes  of  the  canon,  and  of  the 
inspiration  which  is  predicated  of  it  ?  The  first  of 

*  «  Catholic  Thoughts  on  the  Bible  and  Theology,"  p.  3. 


CRITICISM    AND   INSPIRATION     309 

these  objections  may  be  conceded.  Scripture  does  not 
all  stand  upon  the  same  moral  and  religious  level ;  and 
although,  in  the  main,  there  is  a  gradual  advance  from 
less  to  more  adequate  conceptions  of  God  and  of  the 
duty  He  requires  of  man,  that  advance  is  neither 
steadily  nor  uniformly  maintained.  The  bitter, 
violent,  and  revengeful  temper  of  the  late  Book  of 
Esther,  however  intelligible  under  the  circumstances, 
can  only  be  condemned  and  deplored  by  the  Christian 
conscience.  We  know  that  this  book,  together  with 
Ecclesiastes  and  the  Song  of  Songs  had  a  long  fight 
for  their  place  in  the  canon.  Even  those  who  theoreti- 
cally believe  in  the  equal  value  of  all  parts  of  Scrip- 
ture unconsciously  develop  a  sort  of  instinct  for  the 
relative  religious  value  of  its  various  parts ;  this  is 
proved  by  the  naturalness  and  .frequency  with  which 
they  turn  to  certain  books  rather  than  to  others. 

Again,  it  would  be  idle  to  deny  that  in  Greek 
tragedy  and  philosophy,  in  ^Eschylus,  Sophocles,  and 
Plato,  as  well  as  in  much  modern  literature,  there  are 
religious  and  ethical  conceptions  of  a  very  noble  order, 
which,  in  certain  directions,  it  would  be  very  hard,  if 
not  impossible,  to  differentiate  from  some  of  the 
teaching  of  Scripture.  But  when  every  concession 
has  been  made  that  can  be  made,  it  remains  a  simple 
fact  that  the  Biblical  conception  of  the  character  of 
God,  taken  as  a  whole,  is  not  approached,  far  less 
surpassed,  by  that  of  any  other  literature.  Modern 
religious  teachers,  whether  in  prose  or  verse,  will  be 
found  to  draw  most  of  that  which  is  best  in  their 
teaching,  if  not  directly  from  Scripture,  at  any  rate 
from  that  moral  and  religious  atmosphere  which  has 


jio     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

been  created  by  Scripture;  and  most  of  them  would 
be  willing  to  acknowledge  this.  With  regard  to  the 
teaching  of  the  classical  poets  and  philosophers,  pro- 
found and  lofty  as  that  often  is,  the  modern  religious 
consciousness  is  often  struck  by  its  coldness,  its  uncer- 
tainty, its  inadequacy.  They  know  of  the  relentless- 
ness  of  fate,  but  little  or  nothing  of  the  love  of  God. 
They  have  no  gospel  to  preach  to  the  poor,  and  few 
words  of  comfort  for  him  that  is  weary  and  ready 
to  die.  The  God  of  the  Bible,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
a  God  of  redemption,  who  in  history,  in  life,  in 
Christ,  unceasingly  commends  His  love  toward  us. 
There  is  a  distinction  between  Greek  and  Hebrew 
literature,  judging  each  by  their  noblest  representa- 
tives, which  cannot  escape  any  one  who  has  studied 
both  literatures  sympathetically.  But  it  would  be 
idle  to  deny  that  there  are  many  utterances  in  Plato 
worthy  of  a  place  in  Scripture,  just  as  it  has  to  be 
admitted  that  there  are  certain  utterances  in  Scrip- 
ture which  fall  below  the  moral  dignity  of  the  collec- 
tion as  a  whole.  "  To  suppose,"  says  Mr.  Montefiore, 
"  that  Esther  and  Ezra  are  inspired,  but  that  the 
Republic  and  the  Antigone  are  not,  is  revolting  to 
our  common  sense."1 

This  is  all  true ;  yet  the  limits  of  the  canon,  though 
theoretically  open,  are  practically  closed.  The  books 
that  constitute  the  canon  had  already  commended 
themselves  supremely  to  the  Church  before  they  were 
incorporated  in  a  canon.  Their  incorporation  only 
gave  formal  recognition  to  an  established  fact  —  the 
fact  of  the  religious  value  and  power  of  the  books  as 

1  "Jewish  Quarterly  Review,"  October,  1901,  p.  151. 


CRITICISM   AND    INSPIRATION    311 

proved  by  the  experience  of  the  Church.  It  was,  on. 
the  whole,  a  happy  instinct  or  rather  a  kindly  Provi- 
dence that  created  the  Canon  of  Scripture.  In  so  far 
as  that  has  encouraged  the  idea  that  every  book  within 
it  differs  in  kind  from  every  other  book  without  it,  it 
has  led  to  a  mechanical  view  of  inspiration ;  it  has 
fostered  Bibliolatry ;  it  has  forgotten  that  God's  spirit 
cannot  be  imprisoned  within  books  any  more  than  it 
can  be  confined  to  temples  made  with  hands.  But 
there  can  be  little  doubt  that,  however  hard,  perhaps 
impossible,  in  certain  cases  it  may  be  to  justify  the  dis- 
tinction between  the  books  within  and  those  without 
the  canon,  the  practical  wisdom  of  the  Church  has  been 
shown  in  drawing  the  general  distinction.  Of  course 
no  historical  decision  of  this  kind  can  be  absolutely 
binding  on  subsequent  generations;  but  as  that  de- 
cision or  those  successive  decisions  only  crystallized 
the  experience  of  the  Church,  first  the  Jewish  and  then 
the  Christian,  and  as  that  experience  has  been  con- 
stant and  uniform,  it  may  safely  be  acquiesced  in; 
and  it  will  probably  stand  as  long  as  the  Church 
itself. 

We  are  at  the  end  of  our  long  discussion,  and  the 
result  has  been  to  show  that  criticism  in  no  way  im- 
perils a  belief  in  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible.  It  is 
only  when  it  confines  its  attention  to  some  of  the 
facts,  and  these  the  least  important,  that  it  can  even 
seem  to  do  so.  But  the  other  facts  which  a  compre- 
hensive study  equally  forces  upon  our  attention  — 
the  acute  prophetic  consciousness,  the  extraordinary 
differences  between  Hebrew  and  Babylonian  story, 


3i2     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

the  marvellous  unity,  in  spite  of  the  utmost  diversity 
among  the  books  of  Biblical  literature,  and  similar 
phenomena  —  can  only  be  explained  by  the  presence 
within  it  of  such  a  real  influence  as  is  implied  by  the 
great  term  "  inspiration."  The  Bible  has  been  not  un- 
aptly described  as  a  history  of  salvation.  The  former 
term  suggests  that  salvation  is  not  an  abstract  thing, 
apart  from  human  needs  and  interests,  but  wrought 
out,  act  by  act  and  scene  by  scene,  within  the  theatre 
of  history.  The  latter  term  suggests  that  the  histor- 
ical facts  are  charged  with  divine  meaning  and  pur- 
pose. While  the  religious  man  is  concerned  with  this 
inner  purpose,  it  is  with  those  facts,  with  all  the 
available  literary  and  historical  facts,  that  criticism 
has  to  deal.  If  some  of  those  facts  are  calculated  to 
give  a  shock  of  surprise  to  one  who  approaches  his 
study  with  preconceived  notions  of  what  a  divine 
revelation  must  be,  other  facts  are  bound  to  impress 
upon  him  far  more  vividly  and  powerfully  that  strange 
uniqueness  of  Biblical  literature,  which,  when  every 
account  of  it  has  been  given  that  can  be  given,  has 
ultimately  to  be  referred  to  the  direct  inspiration  of 
Almighty  God. 


CHAPTER  XI 
A   GREAT   GULP   FIXED? 

THE  eagerness  with  which  the  critical  view  of  the 
Old  Testament  has  been  repudiated  by  the  supporters 
of  the  traditional  view  suggests  that  between  those 
views  there  is  a  great  gulf  fixed.  If  this  were  true, 
it  would  indeed  be  lamentable;  for  it  would  mean 
that  the  Christian  Church  was  divided  against  itself. 
Almost  every  representative  of  both  parties  —  at  any 
rate  in  Britain  and  America  —  stands  within  that 
Church  ;  and  this  it  is  which  constitutes  the  real 
pathos  of  the  whole  situation.  If  the  critics  were  all 
without  the  Church,  careless  of  her  interests  and  in- 
different to  her  Lord,  while  their  opponents  were  all 
within  the  Church,  alone  in  their  devotion  to  the  ser- 
vice of  Christ,  the  situation  might  be  easily  and  plau- 
sibly explained.  But  it  is  not  so.  Many  of  the 
critics  are  conspicuous  for  the  devoutness  of  their  life 
and  the  enthusiasm  of  their  service ;  and  if  the  differ- 
ences between  them  and  their  opponents  are  irrecon- 
cilable, then  is  the  situation  sad  indeed.  But  does 
not  this  very  fact  that,  in  the  practical  work  of  the 
Church  they  can  shake  hands,  suggest,  though  it  may 
not  prove,  that  the  breach  is  not  really  so  hopeless  as 
both  parties  are  sometimes  tempted  to  suppose,  and 


OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

that  the  things  which  unite  them  are  more  numerous, 
or  at  any  rate  more  important,  than  those  which  sep- 
arate them  ? 

It  is  particularly  difficult  to  discuss  the  quality  of 
the  differences  that  separate  the  parties,  because,  as  we 
have  already  seen,1  so  many  varieties  of  opinion  arc 
represented  within  the  ranks  of  each.  The  conces- 
sions made  by  large  numbers  of  those  who  identify 
themselves  with  what,  in  the  main,  may  be  called  the 
traditional  opinion,  are  both  numerous  and  impor- 
tant :  many  admit  the  literary  analysis  of  the  histori- 
cal books,  an  admission  vehemently  repudiated  by 
others  as  ridiculous  and  impossible ;  and  so  on.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  critics,  as  we  have  seen,2  are  by 
no  means  the  sworn  foes  of  the  supernatural.  Many 
believe  in  it  with  all  their  hearts,  and  express  their 
belief  explicitly  and  unambiguously  ;  many  admit, 
too,  that  the  phenomena  presented  by  Biblical  liter- 
ature are  only  to  be  explained  by  its  direct  inspira- 
tion. When  such  important  concessions  are  made 
by  each  side  to  the  other,  it  becomes  increasingly 
clear  that,  if  there  be  not  indeed  a  common  standing 
ground,  the  more  moderate  members  of  both  parties 
are  yet  not  so  far  apart  after  all.  Though  they  may 
differ  in  method  and  attitude,  yet  they  hold  in  com- 
mon much  that  is  fundamental. 

It  must,  however,  be  confessed  that  there  has  not 
been  on  either  side  much  of  the  spirit  of  compromise. 
Antagonism  has  been  frankly  accepted  by  both  as  the 
relation  subsisting  between  them.  The  points  of  dis- 
tinction have  been  pressed,  and  the  points  of  agree- 

i  Chapter  III.  a  Chapter  IX. 


A   GREAT   GULF  FIXED?        315 

ment,  which  are  by  no  means  inconsiderable,  have 
been  for  the  most  part  ignored.  Professor  Volck  of 
Dorpat,  though  a  representative  of  the  more  tolerant 
phase  of  conservative  opinion,  yet  maintains  that 
"  peace  between  the  two  camps  is  impossible  :  the 
gulf  which  separates  them  cannot  be  bridged."  1  Pro- 
fessor Jordan  of  Kingston,  who  represents  tolerant 
critical  opinion,  is  of  the  same  mind.  "  It  is  no  use," 
he  says,  "  attempting  to  minimize  the  difference  be- 
tween the  traditional  view  and  the  critical  treatment 
of  the  Old  Testament.  The  difference  is  immense  ; 
they  involve  different  conceptions  of  the  relation  of 
God  to  the  world,  different  views  as  to  the  course  of 
Israel's  history,  the  process  of  revelation,  and  the 
nature  of  inspiration."  2  Similar  is  the  testimony  of 
the  Rev.  Dr.  Hazard,  in  his  Introduction  to  the  Rev. 
Isaac  Gibson's  "  Reasons  for  the  Higher  Criticism  of 
the  Hexateuch  :  "  "  As  compared  with  the  .  .  .  obso- 
lescent treatment  of  the  Bible  that  was  accepted  out- 
side the  limited  circle  of  specialists  down  to  within 
the  last  two  or  three  decades,  the  present  system  is 
an  advance  of  such  profound  significance,  that  the 
two  are  nothing  short  of  mutually  destructive." 3 
So  Mr.  Gibson  himself:  "The  traditional  and  critical 
views  of  revelation  are  face  to  face  in  open  antag- 
onism." 4  Thus  it  cannot  be  said  that  either  side  has 
been  lacking  in  candor,  or  has  been  eager  to  cry 
peace,  when  there  was  no  peace. 

We  have  no  alternative  but  to  believe  the  represent- 

1  "  Heilige  Schrift  und  Kritik,"  p.  190. 

2  "  American  Journal  of  Theology,"  January,  1902,  p.  114. 
»  p.  17.  4  Id.  p.  100. 


ji6     OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

atives  of  the  parties  when  they  emphatically  assert 
their  mutual  incompatibility ;  but  what  if  it  should 
turn  out  that  this  incompatibility  is  not  so  much  one 
of  positive  religious  belief  as  of  standpoint,  attitude, 
and  method  ?  Radii  from  widely  diverging  points  on 
the  circumference  will  meet  in  a  common  centre. 
But  before  attempting  to  show  that  in  some  of  the 
most  important  essentials  these  diverse  views  agree, 
it  may  be  well  to  consider  briefly  the  main  outlines  of 
these  views,  with  their  chief  characteristics,  in  spite 
of  the  difficulty  already  alluded  to,  of  summarizing 
positions  whicli  are  held  by  nearly  every  representa- 
tive in  a  way  of  his  own.  We  shall  take  the  average 
belief  in  each  case,  so  far  as,  amid  such  variety,  one 
can  with  any  propriety  speak  of  an  average  belief  at 
all ;  and  we  shall  touch  in  the  main  only  the  points 
where  they  seriously  differ. 

(i)  On  the  traditional  view,  the  Pentateuch,  with  the 
exception  of  a  few  verses  towards  the  end  of  Deuteron- 
omy, was  written  by  Moses,  who,  in  composing  the 
Book  of  Genesis,  may  possibly  have  used  and  welded 
together  existing  documents.  Repetitions  of  inci- 
dents are,  in  the  main,1  to  be  regarded  as  real  repeti- 
tions, not  as  discrepant  versions  of  the  same  incident. 
The  stories  of  the  patriarchs  certainly,  and  the  stories 
that  precede  them  very  probably,  are  historical,  as 
much  so  as  the  account  of  the  reign  of  Hezekiah. 
Similarly  the  incidents  of  the  wilderness  wandering 
are  historically  as  trustworthy  as  the  account  of  the 

1  Professor  Davis,  as  we  have  seen  (pp.  16, 17),  admits  the  probability 
of  occasional  duplication,  but  does  not  believe  it  to  be  characteristic. 


A   GREAT   GULF    FIXED?        317 

intrigues  by  which  Jehu  succeeded  to  the  throne  of 
Israel.  The  three  codes  of  law  are,  in  the  strictest 
sense,  Mosaic:  the  Book  of  the  Covenant  (Ex.  xx. 
22-xxiii.  33)  being  preparatory ;  the  Book  of  Leviti- 
cus, with  the  kindred  sections  in  Exodus  and  Num- 
bers, an  elaborate  professional  code  designed  for  the 
priests ;  and  the  Book  of  Deuteronomy,  a  simple  and 
non-technical  presentation  of  the  law  for  the  guidance 
of  the  people.  The  Book  of  Joshua  was  written  by 
a  contemporary  soon  after  Joshua's  death,  and  has 
practically  all  the  value  of  a  contemporary  docu- 
ment. A  similar  value  attaches  to  the  Books  of 
Samuel  and  Kings.  The  Book  of  Chronicles  differs 
from  the  two  latter  books  not  in  its  inferior  accuracy 
and  reliability,  but  only  in  being  written  from  a 
different  standpoint  —  that  of  the  priest. 

The  prophetical  books  are  all  written  by  the 
authors  whose  name  they  bear.  Each  book  is  com- 
plete in  itself,  and  no  part  of  it  is  to  be  denied  to  its 
reputed  author  —  as  is  done  by  criticism  in  the  case 
of  Isaiah  —  because  it  does  not  seem  to  fit  the  histori- 
cal situation  of  the  prophet.  For  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  things,  if  not  indeed  the  unique  thing,  in 
prophecy  is  the  prophet's  power  to  foretell  the  future, 
—  not  only  the  very  near  future,  but  one  that  is  remote 
from  himself  by  centuries.  In  particular  do  they 
predict,  in  what  is  known  as  Messianic  prophecy, 
many  of  the  details  associated  with  the  life,  career, 
and  death  of  Christ.  The  Books  of  Jonah  and  Daniel 
are  regarded  as  literal  history. 

With  regard  to  the  Psalms  and  Proverbs,  their 
authorship  is  determined  by  their  superscriptions. 


3i8       OLD   TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

Nearly  half  the  Psalter  is  by  David,  and  the  histori- 
cal notes,  which  are  occasionally  found  in  the  su- 
perscriptions, indicate  accurately  the  occasion  and 
origin  of  the  psalm.  A  large  element  in  the  Book  of 
Proverbs  is  from  the  hand  of  Solomon,  as  are  also 
the  Song  of  Songs  and  Ecclesiastes.  Practically  the 
whole  of  the  Old  Testament  was  completed  by  the 
time  of  Ezra. 

(ii)  On  the  critical  view  of  the  Old  Testament,  the 
Pentateuch  was  composed  at  various  times  and  under 
various  influences.  Setting  aside  the  Book  of  Deu- 
teronomy, which  was  found  in  621  B.  c.,  and  hardly 
composed  earlier  than  a  century  before  that,  its 
history  rests  upon  three  different  documents :  two 
written  from  a  prophetic  standpoint,  and  under 
slightly  different  conditions,  not  earlier  than  the 
establishment  of  the  monarchy  (circa  1000  B.  c.),  and 
probably  from  one  to  two  and  a  half  centuries  later ; 
and  another  from  the  priestly  standpoint,  in  or  after 
the  exile  (circa  500  B.  c.).  There  are  also  three  strata 
of  legislation,  markedly  different  from  each  other, 
corresponding  to  and  emerging  out  of  three  different 
stages  of  the  history  :  the  Book  of  the  Covenant,  coin- 
ing possibly  from  the  time  of  the  early  monarchy, 
in  any  case  not  earlier  than  the  Judges ;  Deuteron- 
omy, which  belongs  to  and  reflects,  in  the  main,  the 
spirit  and  conditions  of  the  seventh  century  B.  c. ;  and 
the  Priestly  Code  (including  Leviticus  and  the  kin- 
dred sections),  partly  codified  in  the  exile,  amplified 
and  modified  in  post-exilic  times,  practically  fixed, 
though  not  in  its  final  form,  about  the  middle  of  the 
fifth  century,  the  time  about  or  not  long  before 


A    GREAT    GULF   FIXED?       319 

which1  the  Pentateuch  assumed  its  existing  form  by  the 
welding  together  of  its  various  historical  and  legisla- 
tive elements.  The  part  of  Genesis  that  precedes  the 
story  of  Abraham  is  hardly  history  in  any  sense  of  the 
word.  The  Flood  narrative  may  contain  an  historical 
reminiscence,  but  Genesis  i.-iii.,  vi.  1-4,  xi.  1-9,  for 
example,  express  religious  truth  in  terms  of  the  myth. 
The  patriarchal  stories  are  not,  strictly  speaking, 
history,  in  the  sense,  for  example,  that  many  of  the 
stories  of  the  Judges  are  history.  The  figures,  all  or 
some  of  them,  may  be  historic,  but  prophetic  ideas 
have  gathered  round  them,  so  that  they  "  become 
spiritually  significant  —  embody  spiritual  lessons,  or 
become  spiritual  types,  for  the  imitation  or  warning 
of  succeeding  generations." 2  The  incidents  of  the 
wilderness  wandering  have  the  value  of  tradition ;  in 
any  case,  they  are  the  vehicle  for  the  teaching  of 
great  moral  and  religious  truths.  The  Book  of 
Joshua,  like  the  Pentateuch,  with  which  it  is  asso- 
ciated, rests  upon  tradition  ;  but  it  no  doubt  contains 
valuable  historical  material.  The  books  of  Judges, 
Samuel,  and  Kings  were  edited  to  illustrate  the  les- 
sons inculcated  by  Deuteronomy,  that  faithfulness 
meant  prosperity,  while  apostasy  spelt  ruin ;  but 
much  of  their  material  is  very  old,  and  has  practically 
the  value  of  contemporary  testimony.  The  Chronicler 
not  only  wrote  from  the  standpoint  of  the  priest,  but 
he  has  modified  the  material  presented  to  him  by 
Samuel  and  Kings  —  in  the  interests,  of  course,  of  a 
religious  purpose. 

1  Those  statements  mnst,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  he  very  general. 

2  Driver,  "  The  Old  Testament  in  the  Light  of  Tp-day,"  Expositor, 
January,  1901,  p.  4Q. 


320     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

A  prophetical  book  is  not  necessarily  entirely  writ- 
ten by  the  man  whose  name  it  bears.  Old  prophecies 
were  adapted  to  later  conditions.  Their  message  was 
modified  so  as  to  be  a  more  appropriate,  true,  or  com- 
prehensive word  of  God  to  a  later  age,  when  the 
voice  of  prophecy  was  hushed, —  a  promise,  for 
example,  being  sometimes  added  to  a  prophecy  which 
had  once  ended  in  a  threat.  Further,  prophecies  which 
had  circulated,  for  various  conceivable  reasons,  anony- 
mously (cf.  Is.  xl.-lxvi.)  came  in  course  of  time  to  be 
attached  to  prophecies  whose  authors  were  known, 
and  were  thenceforward  familiarly  known  by  those 
names.  But  the  historical  situation  implied  by  a 
prophecy  —  especially  if  it  be  long  and  detailed  enough 
to  justify  us  in  forming  an  accurate  judgment  —  is 
the  situation  out  of  which  it  at  first  emerged,  for  all 
prophecy  is  relevant  to  its  environment.  There  are 
times  when  the  prophet  foretells  the  future ;  but  the 
prediction  is  not  the  essence  of  the  prophecy.  That 
is  rather  preaching,  the  proclamation  of  the  justice, 
mercy,  and  power  of  God,  and  the  eternal  laws  of 
His  moral  order.  No  prophet  directly  predicts  details 
of  Christ's  life;  but  the  prophetic  utterances  were 
justified  and  fulfilled  by  the  larger  facts  and  by  the 
whole  spirit  of  that  life.  The  books  of  Jonah  and 
Daniel,  which  do  not  occur  among  the  historical 
books,  are  not  literal  history,  but  the  allegorical  or 
parabolic  representation  of  magnificent  religious 
thoughts,  —  the  one  illustrating  the  universal  love  of 
God,  the  other  His  power  to  deliver  His  people. 

The  superscriptions  of  the  Psalms  are  seldom,  if 
ever,  a  guide  either  to  their  authorship  or  to  their 
historical  origin.  They  are  no  integral  part  of  the 


A   GREAT   GULF   FIXED?       321 

psalms  themselves,  but  represent  tradition  or  the  con- 
jectures of  later  editors.  Some  psalms  —  probably,  in 
any  case,  not  many  —  may  be  from  David  ;  but  with 
the  exception  of  the  eighteenth,1  it  is  impossible  to 
say  with  any  certainty  which  are  his.  Though  there 
are  no  doubt  several  pre-exilic  psalms  and  proverbs, 
the  great  bulk  of  both  books  is  post-exilic.  Ecclesi- 
astes  voices  the  scepticism  and  despondency  of  the 
third  or  second  century  B.  c.  The  canon  of  the  Old 
Testament  was  a  gradual  growth.  Only  the  Penta- 
teuch could  be  called,  in  any  formal  sense,  canonical 
in  the  time  of  Ezra.  The  canon  of  "  the  prophets  " 
was  determined  probably  about  200  B.  c. ;  and  the 
rest  of  the  Old  Testament,  whose  position  was  for  a 
long  time  less  definite  and  stable,  probably  about 
100  B.  c.  But  what  fixed  the  canon  was  ultimately 
no  formal  and  authoritative  decision;  the  books 
obtained  their  unique  place  because  they  had  already 
proved  their  power  in  the  hearts  of  men  and  in  the 
experience  of  the  Church.  They  lived  because  they 
deserved  to  live. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  remark  that  this  brief 
sketch  of  the  two  opposing  schools  is  not  even  ap- 
proximately exhaustive ;  but  it  contains  the  more 
salient  points  of  distinction,  so  far  at  least  as  the  liter- 
ary results  are  concerned.  Of  course  the  literary 
results  are  usually  accompanied  by  other  results  of 
an  historical  nature.2  If  the  earlier  historical  books 

1  Some  deny  even  this  psalm  to  David,  e.  g.  Cheyne,  Duhm,  Well- 
hausen. 

-  For  the  sense  in  which  these  results  may  justly  be  considered  apart, 
see  pp.  238-241. 

21 


322     OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

be  as  late  as  current  criticism  claims,  the  question  of 
their  historical  trustworthiness  is  at  once  raised ;  for 
it  will  hardly  be  maintained  that  a  narrative  which 
stands  over  a  thousand  years  from  the  earliest  inci- 
dent it  records,  and  three  or  four  hundred  from  the 
latest,  has  the  value  of  contemporary  history.  Again, 
if  the  critical  view  of  the  date  of  the  priestly  part 
of  the  Pentateuch  is  correct,  undoubtedly  the  result 
is  to  invert  the  ordinary  reading  of  the  history  of 
Israel.  According  to  that  reading,  the  Pentateuch 
with  its  priestly  legislation  occurs  at  the  very 
beginning  of  Israel's  national  history.  The  nation 
was  launched  on  its  career  with  a  priestly  pro- 
gramme. The  prophets  follow,  and  follow  at  a  long 
interval.  The  phrase,  "  the  law  and  the  prophets," 
expresses  a  chronological  truth.  On  the  critical 
view,  however,  the  law,  technically  so  called,  is  a 
product  of  Judaism ;  the  prophets,  at  least  the  more 
conspicuous,  precede  the  law.  This  is  not  the  place 
to  attempt  either  to  justify  or  refute  the  critical 
inversion  of  the  history ;  suffice  it  to  say  that  the 
conclusion  has  been  reached  by  a  very  minute  and 
extensive  study  of  literary  and  historical  facts.  Criti- 
cism, of  course,  would  not  dream  of  denying  the  exist- 
ence of  priestly  interests  all  through  the  history,  nor 
would  it  deny  that  the  law  was  the  first  part  of  the 
Old  Testament  to  obtain  canonicity.  What  it  denies 
is  that  the  prophets  were  acquainted  with  the  Penta- 
teuch which  we  know ;  what  it  asserts  is  the  priority 
of  the  prophets  to  the  law  in  its  present  elaborate  and 
literary  form. 

With   that  conclusion  has  usually  gone  another  — 


A   GREAT   GULF  FIXED?        323 

the  religious  superiority  of  the  prophet  to  the  priest. 
The  priest,  it  is  argued,  represents  the  element  that 
Hebrew  religion  shares  in  common  with  other  Semitic 
religions ;  the  prophet,  on  the  other  hand,  is  peculiar 
and  distinctive  to  Hebrew  religion.  It  is  he,  under 
God,  who  makes  that  religion  the  unique  thing  it  is. 
He  is  the  man  of  original  ideas,  whereas  the  priest  is 
the  man  of  convention ;  and  the  Judaism  which  was 
largely  created  by  the  priesthood  cherished  just  that 
legal  type  of  religion  which  had  always  been  abhorrent 
to  the  soul  of  the  great  prophets.  Such  judgments  in 
their  extreme  form  will  doubtless  have  to  be  qualified. 
The  antagonism  between  the  prophets  and  the  priests, 
if  it  be  not  largely  a  figment  of  the  critical  imagination, 
cannot  have  been  anything  like  as  keen  as  it  has  been 
the  fashion  to  represent  it.  In  many  cases,  indeed, 
those  interests  are  seen  to  work  harmoniously  together, 
and  even  to  be  blended  in  the  same  persons.  They 
are  combined  in  the  Book  of  Deuteronomy,  as  well  as 
in  the  persons  of  Ezekiel,  Haggai,  and  Malachi ;  while 
even  on  the  critical  view  the  Psalter,  which  is  surely, 
in  the  main,  prophetic  in  spirit,  was  preserved,  ar- 
ranged, and  edited,  if  not  largely  composed,  by  the 
temple  priests  —  the  very  men  who,  we  are  given  to 
understand,  possessed  so  little  of  the  prophetic  spirit. 
But  after  every  readjustment  has  been  made  which 
these  considerations  suggest,  it  still  remains  true  that 
on  the  ordinary  view  the  law  appears  at  the  beginning 
of  Hebrew  history ;  on  the  critical  view,  it  does  not 
appear  till  Israel  has  ceased  to  be  a  nation  and  has 
practically  become  a  church. 

It  would  be  idle  therefore  to  minimize  the  serious 


324     OLD   TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

differences  between  the  two  views,  or  to  ignore  the 
fact  that  these  differences  touch  not  only  the  literary, 
but  also  the  historical,  problems.  Nay,  more.  They 
involve,  speaking  generally,  different  views  of  the  rela- 
tion of  God  to  the  world  and  to  man.  On  the  tradi- 
tional view,  the  transcendence  of  God  is  emphasized. 
He  works  upon  the  world  and  upon  man  from  without. 
They  are  the  clay,  and  He  is  the  potter.  They  are 
passive ;  He  moulds  them  as  He  will.  This  attitude 
has  tended  in  turn  to  produce  a  somewhat  mechanical 
conception  of  inspiration  and  an  inadequate  view  of 
revelation.  The  spirit  of  man  responds  to  the  touch 
of  God  as  the  strings  of  the  harp  to  the  touch  of  the 
player :  only  so,  and  in  no  more  living  way.  The  truth 
is  superimposed  rather  than  appropriated.  So  reve- 
lation, too,  tends  to  become  the  imparting  of  certain 
dogmas,  the  reception  of  which  is  conceived  as  neces- 
sary to  the  soul's  salvation. 

The  critical  view,  on  the  other  hand,  emphasizes  the 
immanence  of  God.  He  is  within  the  world,  and  with- 
in the  souls  of  men ;  not  only  their  Creator,  but  the 
principle  of  their  life.  He  reveals  His  nature  not  only 
to  and  by  men,  but  in  and  through  them,  so  that  the 
revelation  is  determined  not  only  by  His  love,  but  by 
their  capacity  :  it  will  advance  as  their  capacity  to  ap- 
prehend it  advances.  The  prophet's  individuality  is 
not  suppressed,  but  rather  exalted,  by  the  divine  affla- 
tus. The  truth  which  comes  to  him  comes  not  as  a 
finished  dogma,  but  in  living  relation  to  his  own  spirit- 
ual experience,  and  to  his  social,  political,  or  religious 
environment ;  it  has  all  the  warmth  of  a  definite  his- 
torical situation.  Again,  God  reveals  His  nature  not 


A   GREAT  GULF  FIXED?       315 


only  by  the  words  His  servants  utter,  but  in  the  long 
inarch  of  history,  so  that  history  itself  becomes  a  rev- 
elation, and  in  its  crises  and  tendencies  may  be  read 
the  purpose  and  the  mind  of  God. 

These  views  are  not  indeed  mutually  exclusive,  but 
each  has  an  attitude  of  its  own,  which  is  conceived  to 
be  important  and  reasonable,  and  interests  of  its  own 
which  it  is  especially  eager  to  safeguard.  Each  em- 
phasizes elements  that  the  other  tends  to  ignore. 
Transcendence  and  immanence,  dogma  and  life  —  in 
some  such  terms  the  conflict  might  be  bluntly  stated. 

Now,  in  spite  of  all  that  has  been  said  as  to  the  dif- 
ferences, which  are  neither  few  nor  inconsiderable, 
between  the  rival  schools,  it  must  be  maintained  with 
equal  emphasis  that  they  have  much  —  and  much  that 
is  of  fundamental  importance  —  in  common.  To  begin 
with,  each  believes  —  and  again  we  speak  of  the  aver- 
age representative  of  the  two  parties  —  in  the  essential 
unity  of  the  Bible.  Doubtless  that  unity  is  differently 
conceived.  To  the  one,  all  Scripture  stands  on  practi- 
cally the  same  level,  as  it  is  the  Word  of  God  ;  to  the 
other,  it  exhibits  great  varieties  of  moral  and  spiritual 
attainment,  because,  besides  being  the  Word  of  God,  it 
is  also  the  word  of  man.  But  to  the  one  as  unambigu- 
ously as  to  the  other  it  is  the  Word  of  God.  He  is 
the  controlling  force  in  the  long  movement  of  which 
Scripture  is  the  literary  reflection ;  and  if  the  extreme 
traditional  view  finds  the  unity  in  the  equality  of  all 
its  parts,  the  critical  view  regards  the  unity  as  that  of 
a  living  body  —  the  life  of  the  whole  being  in  each  of 
its  parts,  but  the  members  differing  in  usefulness  and 
dignity  from  one  another.  To  both,  the  theme  of  the 


326     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

Bible  is  God — His  ways  being  made  known  in  the 
history,  His  demands  in  the  legislation,  His  character 
in  the  prophecy,  the  need  and  joy  of  fellowship  with 
Him  in  the  Psalms.  And  all  that  is  as  true  on  the 
critical  view  of  the  Old  Testament  as  on  the  other. 

To  both  parties,  then,  Scripture  is  profitable  for 
teaching.  The  critical  view,  recognizing  the  relativity 
of  the  revelation,  is  not  perplexed  by  the  appearance 
of  moral  and  spiritual  crudities.  It  accepts  them  as 
inevitable  in  a  plan  according  to  which  men  were 
taught  as  they  could  bear.  Nay,  it  finds  in  the  grad- 
ual progress  of  Israel  the  presence  of  One  whose 
considerate  love  for  her  never  slumbered  or  slept. 
Thus  every  stage  of  the  history,  every  appeal  of  the 
prophecy,  every  yearning  of  the  Psalter,  has  something 
to  teach  us.  It  is  all  profitable,  on  the  one  view  no 
less  than  on  the  other ;  for  on  both  it  is  a  revelation 
of  God. 

It  has  indeed  been  common  to  represent  the  critical 
view  as  antagonistic  to  the  idea  of  revelation,  and  of 
the  supernatural  generally.1  This,  as  we  have  seen,  is 
not  a  fair  statement  of  the  case.  It  touches  only  that 
class  of  critics  who  approach  their  studies  with  a  bias 
against  the  supernatural,  and  who  naturally  find  what 
they  bring,  minimizing  the  significance  of  unique  facts, 
or  coercing  them  into  their  scheme.  But  so  far  is 
the  statement  from  being  applicable  to  all  critics,  that 
many  of  them  have  earnestly  repudiated  it.  Nay,  they 
have  gone  further,  not  only  asserting  their  faith  in 
the  supernatural,  but  maintaining  that  the  phenomena 

1  Higher  Criticism  is  designated  a  "  rationalistic  and  auti-christian 
crusade  "  by  Sir  R.  Anderson,  "  Daniel  in  the  Critics'  Den,"  p.  4. 


A   GREAT   GULF    FIXED?        327 

of  Israel's  history  are  not  explicable,  unless  the  super- 
natural be  postulated.  Natural  development  utterly 
and  absolutely  fails  to  account  for  the  incontestable 
facts  of  Israel's  history  and  prophecy :  the  unique 
phenomena  can  only  be  accounted  for  by  the  presence 
of  a  unique  factor.  How  are  we  to  explain  the  superb 
isolation  of  Hebrew  prophecy  ?  asks  Professor  Davis 
of  Princeton.  u  Under  identical  historical  conditions, 
none  of  Israel's  neighbors  or  kinsfolk  among  the 
nations  produced  religious  teaching  such  as  that  of 
Israel  concerning  God,  righteousness,  sin,  and  redemp- 
tion." 1  His  answer  is  that  they  received  immediate 
communications  from  God.  The  very  same  point  re- 
ceives admirable  emphasis  from  a  representative  of  the 
opposite  school.  "  The  gradual  self-revelation  of  God 
to  man,  while  normally  working  upon  the  principle  of 
Evolution,  or,  in  other  words,  while  adapted  to  man's 
capacity  for  apprehension,  reaches,  at  certain  times,  a 
stage  at  which  the  ordinary  course  of  that  Revelation 
is  suspended,  and  an  extraordinary  step  is  taken, 
whereby  man  is  placed  within  reach  of  a  new  concep- 
tion and  a  new  knowledge  of  God,  to  which  it  would 
have  been  impossible  for  him  under  normal  circum- 
stances to  attain.  .  .  .  When  we  compare  the  concep- 
tion of  Yah  we  held  by  the  latest  of  the  Nebiim  (in 
the  early  sense  of  the  word)  with  that  of  the  first  of 
the  '  literary '  prophets,  the  difference  is  found  to  be 
so  prodigious,  both  in  kind,  as  well  as  in  degree,  that  it 
is  absolutely  impossible  to  believe  that  Evolution  alone 
can  have  been  the  cause  of  such  an  advance."  2  Surely 

1  "  Presbyterian  and  Reformed  Review,"  April,  1902,  p.  203. 

2  W.  O.  E.   Oesterley,  in    "Expositor,"  August,  1902,   pp.  94,  95. 
Yah  we  =  Jehovah,  and  Nebiim  =  prophets. 


328     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

this  is  no  trivial  point.  Christianity  is  usually  held  to 
stand  or  fall  with  the  supernatural ;  yet  not  only  the 
supporters  of  the  traditional  view,  but  also  alt  their 
opponents  who  are  not  committed  to  a  philosophical 
position  which  denies  the  supernatural  at  the  outset, 
agree  in  maintaining  that  without  it  the  history  and 
prophecy  of  Israel  are  a  hopeless  riddle.  The  gulf 
fixed  cannot  then  be  so  very  great,  after  all.  Here  is 
absolute  agreement  expressed  in  the  most  unmistak- 
able terms  on  a  point  which  both  parties  rightly 
regard  as  fundamental. 

Let  us  now  take  the  sufficiently  crucial  question  of 
the  patriarchal  stories,  and  ask  whether  there  is  any 
radical  difference  between  the  attitudes  maintained 
towards  them  by  the  opposite  schools  respectively. 
An  important  difference  there  undoubtedly  is.  The 
critics  as  a  whole  believe  that  those  stories  are  largely 
legendary,  and  can  only  be  used  for  historical  purposes 
with  the  utmost  caution  and  reserve.  Their  oppo- 
nents, on  the  other  hand,  believe  that  they  are,  in  the 
strictest  sense,  history.  We  have  already  discussed 
some  of  the  reasons  which  have  led  the  critics  to 
question  the  historicity  of  these  early  stories.1  In  the 
meantime  we  are  only  concerned  with  the  question 
whether  the  breach  between  the  opposing  parties  is 
as  great  as  it  seems  to  be.  Plainly  stated,  it  would 
seem  to  be  the  question  of  fact  versus  fiction  ;  and  to 
the  opponents  of  criticism  the  presence  of  fiction  in 
Scripture  would  be  altogether  intolerable. 

Now,  to  begin  with,  this  statement  of  the  antithesis 
is  too  blunt.  In  no  case  would  the  patriarchal  stories 

1  Chapter  VI.,  pp.  163-173. 


A   GREAT   GULF  FIXED?        329 

be  pure  fiction.  The  writers  of  those  stories,  assum- 
ing that  they  wrote  between  the  tenth  and  the  eighth 
century  B.  c.,  did  not  invent  them  :  they  found  them. 
They  had  been  on  the  lips  of  the  people  for  genera- 
tions, and  they  represent  at  the  very  least  traditions 
which  reach  back  to  a  more  or  less  distant  past.  If 
their  value  is  no  more  than  that  of  tradition,  neither 
is  it  less.  They  are  not  deliberate  inventions.  They 
are  not  the  creations  of  imaginative  artists.  They 
are,  at  the  least,  ancient  tradition  adapted  and  inter- 
preted by  men  of  prophetic  spirit. 

Note,  too,  by  men  of  prophetic  spirit.  We  have 
already  seen  that  a  large  section  of  Hebrew  history 
appears  within  the  canon  of  the  prophets,  just  as  the 
Book  of  Jonah,  which  is  in  form  a  narrative,  also  ap- 
pears within  that  canon,  though  in  a  different  part. 
The  thought  is  at  once  suggested  that  the  history  is 
narrated  for  the  sake  of  the  ideas  it  embodies  and 
illustrates ;  its  extraordinary  omissions  in  some 
cases,  and  singularly  brief  notices  in  others,  of  events 
of  the  highest  political  magnitude,  are  proof  enough 
that  the  aim  of  the  historian  is  not  so  much  to  record 
the  facts  of  the  history  as  to  illustrate  its  underlying 
principles.  And  this  applies  to  all  parts  of  Hebrew 
history,  to  the  narratives  of  the  flexateuch  no  less 
than  to  the  more  specifically  historical  books.  In 
any  case,  then,  the  real  core  of  a  patriarchal  story 
is  the  divine  discipline  and  purpose  which  it  illus- 
trates. Whence  the  material  came  through  which  the 
illustration  is  effected  is  another  question  ;  but  even 
if  it  should  turn  out  that  that  material  is  derived 
from  tradition,  the  religious  value  of  the  story  would 


330     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

be  in  no  way  diminished,  though  its  historical  value 
would  naturally  be  less.  These  two  elements,  how- 
ever, are  quite  different,  and  are  too  often  confused. 
The  historical  value  of  a  document  depends  upon  the 
sources  upon  which  it  rests.  The  Book  of  Kings,  for 
example,  rests  in  part  upon  court  annals  and  pro- 
phetic biographies  ;  therefore,  in  addition  to  the  reli- 
gious lessons  which  it  emphasizes,  it  sets  us  directly 
upon  the  arena  of  history.  The  Book  of  Genesis, 
however,  is  not,  in  this  respect,  quite  parallel  to  the 
Book  of  Kings.  The  more  distant  the  sources  are 
from  the  events,  the  less  confidence,  as  a  rule,  can 
be  placed  in  the  history  as  history  ;  but  the  religious 
power  and  truth  of  such  stories  may  be  nevertheless 
of  the  highest.  Indeed,  Gunkel  maintains  that  the 
Book  of  Genesis  is  a  far  more  religious  book  than  the 
Book  of  Kings.1  The  Spirit  of  God  condescended  to 
use  fable  and  allegory  in  the  Old  Testament ;  what 
was  to  hinder  that  same  Spirit  from  using  tradition  ? 
The  material  is  transfigured  by  the  spirit  which  shines 
through  it. 

Long  ago  Plato  laid  down  the  distinction  between 
moral  and  historical  truth.  "  We  cannot  tell,"  he 
virtually  says,  "  what  the  gods  and  heroes  did  when 
they  were  on  earth  among  men ;  for  in  the  nature  of 
the  case  no  permanent  record  could  be  kept.  We 
should  not  therefore  insist  that  the  myths  be  histori- 
cally true.  But  we  have  a  right  to  demand  that  they 
be  morally  true ;  they  must  on  no  account  be  allowed 
to  misrepresent  the  nature  of  the  gods.  If  the  poets 
tell  us  that  the  gods  did  a  cruel  or  a  wicked  or  a  wan- 

1  Genesis,  "  Einleitung,"  II. 


A    GREAT   GULF  FIXED?      331 

ton  thing,  that  is  a  falsehood  which  we  must  reject  and 
dread,  as  we  should  dread  a  loss  to  our  souls  ;  for  it 
is  a  loss  to  the  soul  to  believe  that  the  gods  can  be 
other  than  good."  l  And  may  we  not  say,  following 
Plato,  that  the  stories  of  the  Old  Testament,  which 
deal  with  very  early  times  and  whose  historicity  has 
been  called  in  question  by  some,  may  yet  be  admira- 
ble vehicles  for  the  presentation  of  moral  and  reli- 
gious truth  ?  Their  historicity  is  to  be  settled,  if  it 
can  be,  by  the  evidence  ;  but  their  spiritual  value  is 
not  affected  by  the  decision,  one  way  or  the  other,  on 
the  question  of  the  historicity.  When  Christ  intro- 
duces a  parable  with  such  a  definite  statement  as 
There  was  a  certain  rich  man  clothed  in  purple  and  fine 
linen,  and  a  certain  beggar  named  Lazarus,  are  we  to 
suppose  that  He  intends  to  state  a  definite  historical 
fact  ?  Clearly  the  truth  of  the  parable  does  not  de- 
pend upon  the  historicity  of  this  statement.  Christ 
is  simply  giving  concrete  and  pictorial  expression  to  a 
universal  truth.  The  Pilgrim's  Progress  is  not  his- 
tory, but  it  is  not  therefore  false.  It  is  true.  Its 
truth,  however,  is  not  that  of  objective,  but  of  inner, 
fact :  it  is  the  truth,  not  of  history,  but  of  moral  and 
religious  experience.  We  do  not  for  one  moment 
mean  to  suggest  that  the  patriarchal  stories  are  no 
more  historical  than  the  parables  or  the  Pilgrim's 
Progress ;  but  that,  in  any  case,  even  supposing 
their  historical  value  could  be  shown  to  be  altogether 
secondary,  their  spiritual  significance  would  abide 
unshaken.  "  Even  if  all  the  tales  of  the  Pentateuch," 
remarks  Professor  Kohler,  "  about  the  great  deeds  of 

1  Cf.  "  Republic,"  II.  377-III.  392. 


332     OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

God  during  the  wilderness  wanderings  were  unhis- 
torical,  we  could  still  infer  from  them  what  Israel 
conceived  to  be  possible,  on  the  ground  of  other  expe- 
riences, in  respect  of  the  power  and  grace  of  her 
God."1 

We  may  take  this  opportunity  of  saying  a  word 
incidentally  about  the  critical  attitude  to  history.  It 
is  common  to  maintain  that  the  critics  have  evapo- 
rated the  history.  They  go  to  work  with  what  they 
call  the  historical  method,  and  end  by  giving  us  ideas 
for  facts.  The  charge,  if  it  were  true  —  and  the  gen- 
eral critical  attitude  to  the  patriarchal  stories  seems 
to  lend  it  some  plausibility  —  would  be  serious  ;  for 
it  would  strike  at  the  heart  of  the  Christian  religion. 
That  religion  rests  upon  great  historical  facts  ;  and  if 
they  could  be  obliterated  or  denied,  the  ideas  with 
which  they  have  been  associated  would  lose  their  jus- 
tification.2 "  Christianity  at  least,"  says  Professor 
Sanday,  "  is  definitely  historical.  The  Christian  emo- 
tions have  their  roots  in  certain  historical  events,  and 
as  without  these  events  they  would  never  have  come 
into  existence,  so  also  it  is  not  likely  that  they  can  be 
maintained  without  reference  to  them.  From  the  days 
of  the  primitive  Church  onwards,  we  can  see  that  the 
minds  of  Christians  have  been  full  of  one  great  pre- 
supposition. Remove  that  presupposition,  and  the 
rest  falls  to  the  ground."  With  the  demolition  of  the 
facts  would  go  the  destruction  of  the  religion  created 
by  them.  But  just  because  the  facts  are  of  such  im- 

1  "  Ueber  die  Rerechtigung  der  Kritik,"  p.  26. 

2  For  some  powerful  and  timely  remarks  on  this  subject,  see  Pro- 
fessor Denney's  lecture  ou  "The   Gospels  and  the  Gospel"  in  the 
"British  Weekly,"  Nov.  6  and  13,  1902. 


A   GREAT    GULF  FIXED?       333 

meiise  importance,  it  is  necessary  to  ensure  that  those 
on  which  we  build  are  real  facts.  Now,  while  criti- 
cism has  on  the  one  hand  cast  doubt  upon  the  his- 
toricity of  certain  sections  which  have  hitherto  almost 
universally  passed  for  history,  it  has  on  the  other 
hand  emphasized  with  enthusiasm  the  facts  which 
have  stood  the  test  of  its  investigations,  and  it  has 
conclusively  shown  that  certain  facts,  and  these  the 
most  important,  are  unassailable.  Apart  from  some 
of  those  facts,  the  faith  and  religion  of  Israel  are 
inexplicable  ;  just  as,  apart  from  the  resurrection  of 
Christ,  the  enthusiasm  of  the  early  Church  is  inexpli- 
cable. But  we  must  not  rest  the  faith  upon  an  irrele- 
vant foundation.  Christianity  does  not  stand  or  fall 
with  the  historicity  of  the  patriarchal  narratives.  Its 
truth  does  not  depend  upon  their  truth.  It  stands  or 
falls  with  the  great  facts  of  the  life  of  Christ,  and 
above  all  with  the  fact  of  Christ  Himself.  Nothing 
that  could  be  said  of  the  patriarchal  narratives 
could  affect  His  power  to  lead  men  to  the  Father, 
or  invalidate  His  claim  to  be  the  Way,  the  Truth, 
and  the  Life. 

It  may  still  be  asked  whether  the  patriarchal 
stories  would  not  lose  much,  though,  as  we  have  seen, 
they  could  not  lose  all,  of  their  religious  value,  on  the 
assumption  that  they  are  unhistorical.  To  different 
minds  the  question  will  appeal  in  different  ways. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  much  of  their  attraction 
has  been  due  to  their  supposed  biographical  interest. 
The  struggles  and  temptations,  the  discipline  and 
attainments,  of  real  persons  have  an  interest  and 
stimulus  which,  for  most  men,  do  not  attach  in  quite 


334     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

the  same  degree  to  imaginary  characters.     The  moral 
triumphs  of  real  men  appeal  to  our  better  heart,  and 
provoke  us  to  emulation ;  the  attainments  of  the  hero 
of  fiction  do  not  lay  so  heavy  a  burden  upon  the  con- 
science or  touch  so  powerfully  the  springs  of  resolve. 
There  would  be  exceptions  to  this  attitude,  no  doubt ; 
but  this  approximately  represents  the  general  opinion 
of  the  average  man  as  to  the  relative  influence  of  biog- 
raphy and  fiction.     This  will  be  particularly  clear  if 
we  consider  the  greatest  biography  of  all  —  that  of 
Christ.      Most    people   would    agree   with   the  Hib- 
bert  lecturer  who  said :  "  There  are  some  who  think 
that  ideals  are  just  as  good  for  all  practical  purposes 
as  facts,  and  the  charm  of  the  Christ  what  it  is,  were 
the  Gospels  no  more  than  the  most  consummate  of 
religious  fictions.  ...  It  seems  to  me  that  there  is 
all  the  difference  in  the  world  between  a  Christ  who 
actually  walked  the  earth  in  the  consummate  beauty 
of  holiness,  and  one  who  owes  the  strength  and  sym- 
metry of  his  character  to  vivid  ethical  imagination 
and  subtle  literary  skill.     The  last  may  still  charm 
and  raise  and  refine  those  who  study  him ;  but  the 
first  makes  mankind  richer,  opens  out  new  possibilities 
to  human  nature,  effectually  calls  upon  all  who  love 
him  to  come  up  into  the  mount  of  God."  1     Fortu- 
nately the  time  has  gone  by  when  the  life  of  Christ 
can   be   regarded   as   an   imaginative   creation:    the 
mythical  hypothesis  is  refuted  beyond  all  possibility 
of  rehabilitation.2    But  the  evidence  for  the  patriarchal 

1  Beard,  "  Hibbert  Lectures"  for  1883,  pp.  418,  419. 

2  Even  Schmiedel  magnanimously  concedes  that  certain  passages 
"  prove  that  he  [z.  e.  Christ]  really  did  exist,  and  that  the  Gospels 


A   GREAT   GULF   FIXED?       335 

stories  falls  immeasurably  behind  that  for  the  life  of 
Christ;1  and  if  it  should  be  made  highly  probable 
that  the  stories  were  not  strictly  historical,  what 
should  we  then  have  to  say  ?  We  should  then  have 
to  say  that  their  religious  value  was  still  extremely 
high.  The  religious  truth  to  which  they  give  vivid 
and  immortal  expression  would  remain  the  same. 
The  story  of  Abraham  would  still  illustrate  the  trials 
and  the  rewards  of  faith.  The  story  of  Jacob  would 
still  illustrate  the  power  of  sin  to  haunt  and  determine 
a  man's  career,  and  the  power  of  God  to  humble, 
discipline,  and  purify  a  self-confident  nature.  The 
story  of  Joseph  would  still  illustrate  how  fidelity  amid 
temptation,  wrong,  and  sorrow  is  crowned  at  last  with 
glory  and  honor.2  The  spiritual  value  of  these  and 
similar  tales  is  not  lost,  even  when  their  historical 
value  is  reduced  to  a  minimum,  for  the  truths  which 
they  illustrate  are  truths  of  universal  experience. 

In  discussing  the  critical  attitude  to  the  Book  of 
Daniel,  Dr.  Selbie  makes  some  apposite  remarks. 
He  assumes  —  what  we  have  taken  the  liberty  to 
doubt  above  —  that  fictitious  characters  are  ethically 
as  influential  as  real  ones ;  but  with  this  limitation 
the  argument  is  a  cogent  one.  "  If  the  personages 
who  figure  in  the  pages  of  Shakespeare  or  Goethe 
exercise  an  influence  as  great  as  if  they  had  been 

contain  at  least  some  absolutely  trustworthy  facts  concerning  him." 
"Encyclopaedia  Biblica,"  vol.  ii.  col.  1881. 

1  Chapter  VI.,  pp.  166-168. 

2  The  permanent  religious  value  of  the  patriarchal  narratives  has 
been  attractively  set  forth  by  Fulliquet,  in  "  Les  experiences  religieuses 
d'Israel,"  though  his  treatment  does  not  always  conform  to  the  strict 
demands  of  the  historical  method. 


336     OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

flesh  and  blood,  realities  instead  of  being  merely  the 
creation  of  a  poet's  genius ;  if  Dives  and  Lazarus  and 
the  good  Samaritan  appeal  to  us  as  powerfully  as  if 
the  incidents  recorded  of  them  had  actually  occurred, 
why  should  Daniel  lose  his  moral  influence  if  the 
narratives  concerning  him  should  have  to  be  relegated 
to  the  realm  of  edifying  haggada  ?  Or,  to  put  it  still 
more  plainly,  if  fiction  is  a  legitimate  vehicle  for  con- 
veying moral  lessons  outside  Scripture,  is  its  use  to 
be  forbidden  within  it  ?  Or  may  we  conclude  that 
God,  who  of  old  time  spoke  by  divers  portions  and 
in  divers  manners,  who  found  a  place  in  His  word  for 
allegory  and  parable  and  fable  and  drama,  did  not 
disdain  to  employ  this  literary  device  as  well  ?  Shall 
we  presume  to  exclude  a  book  from  the  Canon,  if  its 
contents  should  prove  to  be  fiction  rather  than  his- 
tory ?  Are  we  to  ignore  a  writer's  purpose  and  miss 
the  lesson  he  teaches,  because  the  literary  form  he 
employs  and  which  is  now  found  to  have  been  common 
when  he  lived,  is  not  what  tradition  had  taught  us  to 
expect  ? "  1  The  story  of  Daniel  does  not  belong  to 
the  same  class  of  literature  as  the  stories  of  Abraham, 
Isaac,  and  Jacob ;  but  the  argument,  with  the  neces- 
sary modifications,  would  hold.  We  are  very  far 
from  maintaining  or  believing  that  the  patriarchal 
stories  are  fiction ;  but  the  point  is  that,  even  if  they 
were,  then,  though  their  stimulus  to  action  might  not 
be  quite  so  great,  yet  whatever  moral  and  religious 
truth  they  possess  on  the  assumption  that  they  are 
historical  would  remain  absolutely  unaffected. 

Here  the  critics  and  their  opponents  are  essentially 

1  "Critical  Review,"  March,  1902,  pp.  Ill,  112. 


A   GREAT    GULF  FIXED? 


337 


at  one.  While  the  latter  accept  and  the  former  doubt 
the  strict  historicity  of  those  narratives,  both  believe 
that  they  are  the  vehicle  of  great  spiritual  truths. 
Both  believe  in  the  educative  religious  value  of  the 
stories.  Both  believe  in  their  power  to  impress  those 
who  read  them  with  lofty  and  inspiring  truths  about 
the  ways  of  God  with  man.  These  things  in  any  case 
constitute  the  essence  of  the  narratives,  and  in  these 
things  they  agree.  The  gulf  between  the  two  is 
surely,  therefore,  not  impassable. 

It  is  hardly  possible  to  over-emphasize  the  impor- 
tance of  this  point,  that  the  positive  religious  content 
of  Scripture  remains  untouched  by  critical  methods, 
and  is,  to  say  the  least,  as  real  and  effective  on  the 
critical  as  on  the  traditional  view.  Criticism  has 
made  considerable  readjustments  in  the  chronological 
setting  of  the  literature ;  but  it  has  not  affected,  and 
cannot  affect,  the  substance  of  it.  Probably  it  would 
be  difficult  to  distinguish  —  except  in  wholly  inciden- 
tal touches  —  whether  a  sermon  on  some  narrative  in 
Genesis  was  preached  from  the  critical  or  the  tradi- 
tional standpoint.  The  preacher  who  repudiated 
critical  methods  and  results  would  have  much  the 
same  to  say  as  the  preacher  who  accepted  them.  They 
would  both  be  interested  in  those  features  of  the 
story  which  were  "profitable  for  teaching."  They 
would  differ,  and  might  differ  very  seriously,  in  the 
place  they  would  assign  to  the  story  in  Hebrew  litera- 
ture. The  one  might  regard  it  as  composed  by  Moses 
on  the  basis  of  ancient  documents,  which  had  the 
practical  value  of  contemporary  testimony ;  the  other 
might  believe  it  to  have  been  written  four  hundred 

22 


OLD   TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

years  after  Moses  was  in  his  grave,  and  to  have  been 
subject  to  all  the  fluctuations  of  oral  tradition  for 
centuries.  But  in  the  pulpit  neither  of  them  is 
called  to  express  his  opinion  on  the  literary  origin  of 
the  story.  The  preacher's  business  is  to  expound  the 
religious  truth  which  it  suggests,  and  only  in  this  way 
does  he  co-operate  with  the  purpose  for  which  the 
story  was  written.  Both  parties  could  shake  hands 
over  such  an  admirable  exposition  of  the  stories  as 
is  to  be  found  in  Professor  Dods'  "  Genesis  "  in  the 
"  Expositor's  Bible  "  series.  Literary  questions  are  for 
those  whom  they  concern ;  but  it  is  not  for  such  dis- 
cussions that  the  people  assemble  themselves  together 
in  the  house  of  God  on  the  Sabbath  day.  They  come 
to  worship  God,  and  to  be  perfectly  furnished  unto 
all  good  works.  The  preacher  should  live  with  the 
historian  or  the  prophet  till  his  heart  is  kindled  into 
something  of  the  faith  that  glows  in  their  words ;  it 
should  then  be  his  passion  to  kindle  that  faith  in  the 
hearts  of  those  who  listen  to  him.  Though  the  critic, 
as  a  critic,  has  to  deal  with  literary  and  historical 
questions,  as  a  preacher  he  is  concerned  only  with  the 
religious  message  of  the  passage  he  has  selected ;  and 
there  is  no  reason  why  that  message  should  not  be  as 
dear  and  impelling  to  him  as  to  the  preacher  who 
cares  nothing  for  critical  methods  and  results.  In 
truth,  the  message  to  both  is  the  same.  There  is  no 
gulf  fixed. 

Take,  again,  an  illustration  from  the  prophets. 
Isaiah  is  regarded  by  criticism  to-day  rather  as  an 
anthology  than  as  a  book.  The  late  Professor  David- 
son's volume  on  that  prophet  in  the  "  Temple  Bible  " 


A    GREAT    GULF   FIXED?        339 

series  is  a  valuable  proof  that  this  is  a  reasonable,  if 
not  an  inevitable,  view  of  the  book  ;  for  Professor 
Davidson  was  not  only  a  noble  scholar,  but  a  scholar  of 
altogether  remarkable  and  almost  proverbial  caution. 
But  the  fact  that  a  book  supposed  for  centuries  to  be 
a  literary  unit  is  divided  by  most  modern  scholars 
among  a  number  of  authors  living  at  different  times, 
varying  in  their  gifts,  and  appealing  to  dissimilar 
situations,  does  not  by  one  jot  or  tittle  impair  the 
religious  value  of  the  book.  Each  section  has  its  own 
message,  whose  importance  depends  not  upon  its  date, 
but  upon  its  truth.  If  it  be  a  real  message,  it  matters 
not  whether  it  be  pre-exilic,  exilic,  or  post-exilic.  If 
a  prophet  breaks  the  silence  with  his  Comfort  ye, 
comfort  ye  my  people,  the  preacher  will  read  on  till  he 
begins  to  understand  the  situation  of  those  by  whom 
the  message  was  needed,  and  to  whom  it  sounded  too 
good  to  be  true.  If,  after  an  impartial  and  exhaust- 
ive study  of  the  situation,  he  can,  without  violence  to 
his  intellectual  conscience,  believe  that  these  words 
could  have  been  spoken  by  Isaiah,  the  son  of  Amoz, 
to  his  contemporaries,  and  could  have  stood  in  living 
relation  to  them  and  their  needs,  good  and  well:  if 
he  believe  that  there  is  no  relevance  or  reality  about 
these  words  unless  they  were  spoken  to  broken-hearted 
exiles,  also  good  and  well.  But  in  either  case  the 
passage  contains  a  gospel,  the  gospel  of  the  pity,  the 
grace,  the  love  of  God,  to  be  manifested  —  in  a  year 
or  two  on  the  one  view,  in  a  century  and  three-quar- 
ters on  the  other  —  in  redemption  from  captivity. 
No  readjustment  of  the  date  in  the  least  affects  this, 
which  is  the  core  of  the  message.  Criticism,  in  plac- 


340     OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

ing  the  bulk  of  the  last  twenty-six  chapters  within 
the  exile,  has  not  dreamt  of  depriving  the  section  of 
its  religious  value,  and  could  not  do  so  if  it  tried. 
Indeed  its  claim  has  rather  been  that  it  has  shown 
how  marvellously  high  that  value  is  by  showing  the 
need,  the  relevance,  and  the  originality  of  the  mes- 
sage. But  without  here  insisting  on  such  claims,  it 
is  enough  to  maintain  that  every  section  of  prophecy 
has  an  indefeasible  religious  value  of  its  own,  totally 
unaffected  by  questions  of  literature,  history,  or  chro- 
nology. The  positive  religious  message  is  the  same 
for  every  interpreter,  whether  he  accept  the  critical 
conclusions  or  not. 

Perhaps  no  part  of  the  Old  Testament  has  so 
thoroughly  divided  scholarly  opinion  as  the  Psalter. 
On  the  dates  of  certain  psalms  scholars  differ  by 
almost  a  millennium ;  and  many  have  been  the  disputes 
as  to  whether  the  speaker  in  the  Psalms  is  an  indi- 
vidual or  the  Church.1  But  here  again  it  must  be 
emphatically  said  that  no  decision  either  way,  on  such 
questions,  affects  the  religious  value  of  the  psalm, 
which  is  essential,  inherent,  and  indestructible.  Place 
the  psalm  where  you  will,  in  the  tenth  century  B.  c.  or 
in  the  second,  it  does  not  cease  to  be  the  expression  of 
a  human  spirit  in  the  presence  of  its  God.  Adoration 
is  adoration,  and  penitence  is  penitence,  whether  on 
the  lips  of  David  on  the  throne  or  of  an  exile  by  the 
waters  of  Babylon. 

1  Engert,  who  has  made  the  most  recent  contribution  to  this  question 
in  his  "  Der  betende  Gerechte  der  Psalmen  "  (1902)  concludes  that  the 
"  I "  of  the  Psalms  is  always  to  be  interpreted  of  the  church,  "  the 
true  Israel." 


A   GREAT  GULF  FIXED?        341 

Take,  for  example,  so  dear  and  familiar  a  psalm  as 
the  twenty-third.  The  Psalm  is  ascribed  to  David ; 
but  it  would  be  no  less  powerful  if  it  had  come  to  us 
without  any  superscription  at  all.  Doubtless  it  would 
gain  a  little,  a  very  little,  in  definiteness,  and  the 
character  of  David  would  be  beautifully  illustrated  on 
the  side  of  its  simple,  tender  trust,  if  the  psalm  were 
certainly  his.  But  that  is  all.  If  it  is  not  his,  it  is 
somebody's ;  on  any  view  of  its  authorship  or  origin, 
it  will  continue  to  the  end  of  time  to  express  in  terms 
of  majestic  simplicity  the  quiet  confidence  with  which 
one  who  knows  Jehovah  to  be  the  Shepherd  of  his  life 
can  face  even  the  valley  of  the  deep  shadow.  It 
expresses  the  fearless  and  abiding  joy  of  one  who 
knows  himself  to  be  the  guest  of  God.  So  with  the 
fifty-first  Psalm.  The  natural  interest  of  this  psalm 
has  been  greatly  heightened  by  the  belief  that  it  was 
the  song  in  which  David  expressed  his  penitence  after 
his  tragic  fall;  and  many  have  revived,  through  its 
words,  their  own  hope  in  the  pardoning  grace  of  God, 
under  the  idea  that  it  was  written  by  one  who 
had  been  guilty  of  exceptionally  aggravated  sin.  But 
the  power  of  the  psalm  to  awake  and  express  peniten- 
tial feelings  in  the  forlorn  heart  does  not  depend  upon 
its  author  having  committed  two  of  the  blackest  sins 
that  ever  stained  a  royal  career.  If  criticism  is  right 
in  regarding  the  psalm  as  "  a  prayer  for  the  restoration 
and  sanctification  of  Israel  in  the  mouth  of  a  prophet 
of  the  exile,"1  it  will  still  be  used  by  the  Church 

*W.  K.  Smith,  "The  Old  Testament  in  the  Jewish  Church," 
p.  441." 


342     OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

collectively  and  by  her  sons  individually  as  the  classic 
expression  of  their  penitence.  The  poet  who  com- 
posed the  psalm,  whether  to  voice  his  own  penitence, 
or  that  of  the  church  whose  fortunes  he  shared,  had 
tasted  in  his  own  soul  the  horror  of  sin,  and  longed 
with  longing  unspeakable  for  the  clean  heart,  the 
right  spirit,  and  the  joy  of  salvation ;  and  every  other 
soul  which  has  known  that  horror  and  yearned  for 
that  salvation  can  make  these  words  its  own.  It 
would  indeed  add  much  to  the  historical  interest  of 
the  psalm  could  we  discover  with  certainty  its 
occasion.  It  is  the  duty  of  criticism  to  attempt  this 
discovery  ;  but  even  if  it  be  not  effected,  the  religious 
value  of  the  psalm  is  undiminished.  Professor 
Kautzsch  has  said  —  and  no  one  will  accuse  him  of 
being  indifferent  to  critical  interests  —  "  How  idle  the 
dispute  about  the  inscriptions  is,  must  be  especially 
clear  to  one  who  uses  the  psalms  for  the  purpose  for 
which  they  were  collected  !  What  in  all  the  world  has 
the  inexhaustible  power  of  songs  like  Psalms  23,  90, 
103,  121, 127,  and  many  others  to  do  with  the  question 
whether  some  post-exilic  redactor  did  or  did  not  err 
in  his  ascription  of  them  to  David  or  Moses  or 
Solomon  ?  "  * 

It  is  abundantly  clear,  then,  that  criticism  leaves 
the  religious  message  of  the  various  sections  of 
Scripture  absolutely  intact.  It  may  show  that  an 
historical  book  is  composite  which  was  supposed  to 
be  an  original  unity.  It  may  show  that  a  prophecy 
which  has  usually  been  regarded  as  a  unity  is  in 
reality  an  anthology.  It  may  revolutionize  the  tradi- 
i  "Abriss/'p.  128. 


A   GREAT   GULF  FIXED?       343 

tional  chronology  of  Hebrew  literature.  But  it  does 
not  affect  the  religious  content  of  the  literature  itself. 
With  all  its  argument  about  a  book,  it  cannot  argue 
the  book  out  of  existence ;  after  it  has  said  its  last 
word,  the  book  remains  as  a  fact,  a  religious  no  less 
than  a  literary  fact.  Its  message  may  not  hold  the 
same  place  in  the  development  of  revelation  which  we 
once  supposed  it  to  hold  ;  but  it  is  there  —  albeit  in 
another  place  — as  a  positive,  indestructible  fact.  It 
expresses  the  faith  or  aspiration  or  penitence  of  a 
human  heart,  and  it  does  so  none  the  less  though  we 
may  not  even  know  the  century  within  which  that 
heart  beat. 

"  No  readjustment,"  said  Robertson  Smith  with  ref- 
erence to  the  words  of  the  Bible,  —  "  no  readjustment 
of  their  historical  setting  can  conceivably  change  the 
substance  of  them."  1  And  that  is  a  truth  which,  in 
the  present  vexatious  controversy,  should  never  be  for- 
gotten. It  is  quite  true,  and  no  attempt  need  be  made 
to  conceal  it,  that  the  differences  between  the  tradi- 
tional and  the  critical  view  are  "  immense ; "  but  it 
is  equally  true  that  those  differences  do  not  touch  the 
religious  essence  of  Scripture :  they  affect  questions 
of  method,  of  standpoint,  of  history,  of  chronology,  of 
literature.  But  in  points  that  are  vital  to  the  faith 
both  parties  —  the  supporters  of  the  older  view  and  the 
critics  who  are  not  biassed  by  a  theory  —  are  in  perfect 
harmony.  Both  believe  that  the  Bible  is  the  record  of 
a  unique  revelation  of  God ;  that  it  could  not  be  what 
it  is  unless  by  His  direct  inspiration ;  that  it  is  profitable 
for  teaching,  reproof,  correction,  instruction  in  right- 
1  "The  Old  Testament  in  the  Jewish  Church,"  p.  19. 


344     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

eousness ;  that  it  is  potent  to  mould  "  man's  character 
through  the  exhibition  of  God's ; "  or,  in  the  language 
of  the  Bible  itself,  that  it  can  furnish  a  man  completely 
unto  every  good  work.  Is  the  gulf,  then,  so  very  great 
after  all  ? 


CHAPTER  XII 
THE  OLD   TESTAMENT   IN  THE   CHURCH 

MORE  than  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  have  passed 
since  the  Westminster  Assembly  recommended  that 
"ordinarily  one  chapter  of  each  Testament  should 
be  read  at  every  meeting"  of  the  congregation  for 
the  public  worship  of  God.  The  practice  of  reading 
from  both  Testaments  is  common  to  all  the  churches 
which  owe  their  confession  to  that  Assembly,  and,  in- 
deed, to  most  of  the  English-speaking  churches,  and 
the  recommendation  of  the  Westminster  divines  but 
gives  formal  expression  to  a  practice  almost  as  old 
as  the  Christian  Church.  But,  widespread  as  is  the 
feeling  that  the  New  Testament  not  only  does  not 
move  in  a  radically  different  world  from  the  Old,  but 
is  only  its  completion  and  crown,  and  that  the  Old 
Testament  may  fairly  be  reckoned  among  the  Scrip- 
tures of  the  Christian  Church,  this  feeling  has  never 
been  universal,  either  in  the  ancient  or  the  modern 
world.  There  have  always  been  men  who  have  felt, 
more  keenly  perhaps  than  was  right,  the  contrast  be- 
tween the  law  which  was  given  by  Moses  and  the  grace 
and  truth  which  came  by  Jesus  Christ ;  sects  in  the 
ancient  world  which  believed  that  the  God  of  the  Old 
Testament  was  not  gracious  but  cruel,  that  He  was 


346     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

not  revealed  but  abolished  by  Christ ;  churches  in  the 
modern  world  which  content  themselves,  as  many  do 
in  Germany,  with  publicly  reading  selected  portions 
of  the  Gospels  and  Epistles.  And  even  those  who 
have  a  keen  enough  historical  sense  to  see  that  the 
separation  of  the  Old  and  New  is  impossible,  have  yet 
to  confess  to  a  lurking  sympathy  with  the  tendency  to 
relegate  the  Old  Testament  to  the  background  and 
to  bring  into  prominence  the  New.  and  not  even  all  of 
the  New,  but  only  those  parts  of  it  which  are  more 
directly  concerned  with  the  sayings  and  doings  of  our 
Saviour,  —  a  tendency  which  seeks  to  find  its  justifi- 
cation partly  in  the  unsettled  and  unsettling  state  of 
Old  Testament  criticism,  partly  in  the  growing  ap- 
prehension of  the  person  of  Christ  as  the  ultimate 
authority  for  the  Christian  conscience.  We  find  our- 
selves then  face  to  face  with  the  question  :  Standing 
as  we  do  in  the  full  brightness  of  the  revelation  of 
Christ,  holding  as  we  do  that  the  truth  which  He 
teaches  is  final,  are  we  in  a  position  to  dispense  with 
the  Old  Testament,  or  have  those  churches  been  right 
which  have  sought  to  reinforce  their  faith  and  hope 
through  psalm  and  prophecy  no  less  than  through 
epistle  and  evangel  ? 

History  has  decided  in  favor  of  the  retention  of  the 
Old  Testament ;  and  her  judgment  will  abide  so  long 
as  men  have  hearts  to  be  thrilled  by  the  record  of  the 
communion  of  the  living  God  with  His  people  of  old, 
or  minds  to  see  how  all  that  was  good  in  the  Old  has 
been  preserved,  even  when  it  has  been  transformed 
by  the  New.  In  particular  we  may  claim  for  the  Old 
Testament  a  twofold  value  —  absolute  and  relative.  It 


THE    CHURCH  347 

lives  both  because  of  what  it  is  in  itself  and  because 
of  that  for  which  it  prepared  the  way,  and  which 
without  it  would  have  been  impossible.  It  is,  per- 
haps, too  much  the  fashion  to  accentuate  the  latter 
and  to  minimize  the  former.  To  take  a  large  view  of 
the  redemptive  purpose  of  God  for  humanity  is,  no 
doubt,  to  see  the  Old  Testament  in  its  preparatory  or 
preliminary  aspect;  it  did  not  bring  that  purpose  to 
fulfilment,  but  by  its  repeated  failures  pointed  men 
to  something  more  strong  and  saving  than  itself. 
But  it  had  its  triumphs  as  well  as  its  failures,  and  to 
look  at  the  slow  but  sure  historical  process  by  which 
God  disciplined  the  people  of  Israel  is  to  see  in  the 
Old  Testament  one  continuous  triumph,  for  it  is  the 
undying  proof  that  God  was  never  very  far  from  His 
people,  but  sought  them  without  ceasing,  sometimes 
in  the  joy  with  which  He  touched  their  hearts  at  fes- 
tivals, sometimes  through  the  insight  of  a  seer  whose 
eyes  were  opened  to  read  the  riddle  of  the  past,  some- 
times in  the  stern  and  lofty  rebuke  of  a  prophet, 
sometimes  in  the  tender,  plaintive  notes  of  a  psalmist 
whose  heart  was  breaking  with  penitence  for  his  own 
sin  or  with  shame  for  the  sin  of  his  people.  Sternly 
or  gently,  God's  voice  can  be  heard  through  every 
period  of  Israel's  history,  the  most  sinful  and  the 
most  forlorn.  When  there  is  "  no  more  any  prophet" 
in  the  land,  there  is  sure  to  be  a  psalmist  who  strength- 
ens his  sorely  tried  faith  and  hope  in  God  by  looking 
back  to  the  salvation  which  He  wrought  for  His 
people  in  the  days  of  old.  There  is  no  part  of  the 
Old  Testament  in  which  we  cannot  see  the  finger  of 
God,  shaping  the  institutions  which  were  in  part  to 


34B     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

determine  the  practice  of  the  Christian  Church,  writ- 
ing His  will  on  the  tables  of  the  heart  and  conscience, 
moulding  the  men  who  were  to  declare  His  purpose. 
Were  there  no  New  Testament,  with  its  perfect  reve- 
lation of  God  in  Jesus  Christ,  the  Old  Testament 
might  yet  in  its  own  way  bring  us  into  the  presence 
of  God,  show  us  God  moving  through  history,  and 
working  in  the  deep  places  of  the  human  heart.  It 
can  not  only  refresh,  but  satisfy,  the  soul  that  lives  in 
it  and  by  it.  Its  power  to  give  comfort  and  strength 
and  peace,  and  to  lead  men  into  the  secrets  of  God,  is 
the  same  yesterday,  to-day,  and  forever.  Men  whose 
hearts  had  only  responded  in  joy  or  humility  to  the 
written  or  spoken  word,  but  had  not  yet  been  thrilled 
by  the  sight  of  the  Word  become  flesh,  knew  it  to  be 
a  lamp  to  their  feet  and  a  light  to  their  path, 

"  More  to  be  longed  for  than  gold, 
Yea,  than  fine  gold  in  plenty, 
Sweeter  than  honey, 
Even  honey  that  drops  from  the  comb." 

To  our  Saviour  it  was  no  less  dear  than  to  the  men 
of  the  older  time.  Though  His  communion  with  the 
Father  was  direct  —  for  He  and  the  Father  were  one 
—  yet  when  He  voices  the  deepest  thoughts  that 
move  Him,  it  is  not  seldom  in  words  consecrated  by 
age  and  by  the  experience  of  holy  men  of  God.  Most 
of  all  do  the  words  of  Scripture  rise  to  His  lips  in 
solemn,  lonely,  or  tempestuous  hours  :  when  tempted 
of  the  evil  one  in  the  wilderness,  when  face  to  face 
with  the  false  justice  of  an  earthly  tribunal,  when 
founding  that  sacrament  which  was  to  keep  His  re- 


THE   CHURCH  349 

demptive  work  ever  before  the  eyes  of  men,  when 
passing  from  the  shame  and  cruelty  of  earth  to  the 
peace  of  His  Father  in  heaven.  Throughout  the 
almost  unbroken  tragedy  of  His  ministry  the  Old 
Testament  was  His  comfort  and  stay. 

And  what  it  was  to  Christ  it  has  been  since  to  those 
that  loved  Him.  They  have  felt  that  the  sublimest 
teaching  of  the  New  could  not  wholly  supersede  the 
Old,  that  in  certain  directions  the  Old  has  been  able 
to  help  them  even  more  than  the  New.  In  the  Old 
we  see  a  people  small  in  numbers  but  great  in  mean- 
ing and  possibilities,  marching  down  the  centuries 
like  an  army  of  God ;  we  see  how  that,  by  the  grace 
of  the  God  who  specially  loved  it,  it  rose  from  the 
heathenism  in  which  it  began  and  by  which  it  was 
surrounded,  and  won  its  way  through  the  purifying 
fires  of  persecution,  war,  and  exile  into  clear  and 
spiritual  conceptions  of  God;  how  that  God,  never 
leaving  Himself  without  a  witness,  raised  up  patri- 
archs, judges,  kings,  psalmists,  prophets,  priests,  and 
would  not  let  His  people  go  until  He  blessed  them. 
There  is  no  history  like  the  history  of  Israel  for  con- 
vincing us  of  the  transcendence  of  God,  and  no  book 
like  the  Old  Testament  for  teaching  us  the  inner 
meaning  of  history.  And  scarcely  less  wonderful 
than  the  vastness  of  the  divine  purpose  realized 
through  Israel  is  the  romance  of  the  incidents,  and 
the  charm  of  the  domestic  and  social  life  through 
which  it  is  unfolded.  That  purpose  works  itself  out 
in  a  world  so  full  of  simple  beauty,  so  rich  in  all  that 
is  touchingly  human,  in  all  the  tender  charities  of 
home  and  friendship  and  love,  that  we  feel  as  if  the 


350     OLD    TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

varied  life  that  moves  before  us  is  not  the  product  of 
a  distant  land  and  time.  Though  the  field  over  which 
the  story  takes  us  is  only  a  few  scores  of  miles,  there 
is  nothing  petty  or  local  about  it ;  it  is  so  splendidly 
human,  and  speaks  home  to  the  hearts  of  all  men. 

Again,  there  is  a  sense  in  which  the  prophets  stand 
nearer  to  modern  needs,  and  mean  more  for  our  time, 
and  especially  for  the  preachers  of  our  time,  than  the 
apostles  do.  The  prophets  breathe  a  freer  air.  Most 
of  them  lived  at  times  in  which  preaching  had,  or  at 
least  might  not  unreasonably  be  expected  to  have, 
some  practical  effect  on  politics.  They  spoke  their 
fearless  words  to  men  who  had  still  in  part  their 
political  destiny  in  their  own  hands.  They  believed 
that  their  message,  if  obeyed,  would  conserve  the 
national  prestige,  if  not  power,  and  give  the  people  a 
place  worthy  of  the  calling  wherewith  God  had  called 
them.  While  trembling  with  pity  and  sorrow  at  the 
thought  of  the  overthrow  which  the  moral  corruption 
of  the  nation  had  made  so  certain,  their  despair  is 
often  redeemed  by  a  certain  latent  belief  in  national 
possibilities,  a  belief  which  the  course  of  the  subse- 
quent history  foreclosed  to  the  New  Testament 
writers,  before  whose  eyes  the  political  greatness  of 
Israel  lay  too  surely  prostrate.  This  was  no  doubt  in 
part  a  gain,  concentrating  men's  minds,  as  it  did,  on 
moral  and  religious  relations  which  abide  amid  all 
change  of  political  form.  But  it  was  a  gain  that  in- 
volved a  loss.  In  the  New  Testament  the  nation  as  a 
nation  has  all  but  ceased  to  be.  In  the  great  period 
of  Old  Testament  history  life  is  still  moving  freely 
and  vigorously  among  the  problems  created  by  the 


THE    CHURCH 


351 


political  relations  of  the  time.  The  prophets  present 
us  with  a  vivid  transcript  of  political  life  ;  the  apostles 
have  none  to  transcribe.  The  fiery  rebukes  of  the 
prophets  have  often  a  strangely  modern  sound ;  for  the 
civilization  which  they  feared  would  work  ruin  to 
the  people  and  the  religion  of  Jehovah  sprang  from 
the  same  sources,  was  permeated  by  the  same  princi- 
ples, and  created  the  same  problems  as  the  more  com- 
plex civilization  of  modern  times.  In  the  burning 
words  which  they  hurl  at  the  carelessness  and  licen- 
tiousness of  society,  at  the  heartless  ceremonialism  of 
priests  and  people  in  their  worship  of  God,  at  the 
polished  selfishness  and  cruel  luxury  of  the  rich,  we 
might  almost  fancy  we  heard  the  voice  of  a  twentieth- 
century  preacher  whose  heart  was  aflame  with  love  to 
God  and  the  people. 

And  if  the  prophets  teach  us  how  to  relate  religion 
to  public  life,  we  learn  from  the  Psalms,  as  we  could 
hardly  learn  even  from  the  New  Testament,  to  enter 
into  the  sanctuary  of  our  hearts  and  commune  with 
God  as  with  a  friend.  In  the  Hebrew  Psalter  men 
have  poured  out  their  hot  hearts  to  God.  Heights  of 
joy,  depths  of  penitence  and  anguish,  resolution  and 
failure,  thanksgiving  and  confession,  every  experience 
of  the  soul  is  here  anticipated,  expressed,  and,  above 
all,  related  to  God,  in  whom  alone  the  weak  found 
their  refuge  and  strength,  and  in  whose  light  men  saw 
the  mysteries  of  human  life,  if  not  with  perfect  clear- 
ness, yet  clearly  enough  to  fill  their  hearts  with  quiet- 
ness and  confidence.  Here  are  the  prayers  that  teach 
us  to  pray,  the  songs  on  which  men  and  nations  have 
modelled  their  praises,  the  confessions  that  inspire  and 


352     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

express  our  penitence.  In  the  Psalter  the  human 
spirit  in  all  the  checkered  possibilities  of  its  experi- 
ence lies  in  the  presence  of  God.  There  is  no  mood, 
whether  of  depression,  struggle,  or  triumph,  which 
does  not  here  find  its  reflex  and  expression.  The 
range  of  its  sympathy  has  made  it  the  comfort  of  men 
in  persecution,  their  inspiration  in  struggle  with  foes 
within  and  without,  the  hope  and  stay  of  their  dying 
hours.  It  is  not  without  a  deep  and  suggestive  truth 
that  the  Psalms  are  sometimes  bound  up  with  copies 
of  the  New  Testament.  Consecrated  by  centuries  of 
Christian  experience,  and  filled  by  the  coming  of 
Christ  with  a  richness  of  meaning  which  they  could 
never  have  had  for  those  who  first  wrote  and  sang 
them,  the  Psalms  belong  almost  more  truly  to  the 
Christian  than  to  the  Jewish  Scriptures.  The  most 
convincing  testimony  to  the  absolute  value  of  the  Old 
Testament  is  just  the  experience  of  the  Christian  and 
the  pre-Christian  world. 

But  it  has  a  further  value  as  ancillary  or  prepara- 
tory. We  have  just  seen  that  it  was  not  only  a  means, 
but  an  end.  We  have  now  to  regard  it  not  as  an  end, 
but  rather  as  a  means.  It  prepared  the  way  for  the 
Testament  by  which  it  was  transcended,  though  not 
superseded,  and  for  Him  whose  coming  marks  a  new 
departure,  and  yet  was  no  less  truly  conditioned  and 
directed  by  all  that  had  gone  before.  In  many  ways 
it  is  more  important  to  recognize  the  continuity  be- 
tween Judaism  and  Christianity  than  the  breach  be- 
tween them.  Some  Judaism  is  practically  Christian, 
some  early  Christianity  is  still  Judaic.  There  are 
passages  in  the  Old  Testament,  like  those  which 


THE   CHURCH  353 

describe  the  suffering  servant,  that  help  us  to  feel  that 
the  glory  of  the  New  Testament  lies  not  so  much  in 
teaching  us  a  deeper  secret,  or  a  new  way,  but  in 
bringing  us  into  living  fellowship  with  One  who  was 
Himself  the  way  ;  and  there  are  tracts  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament so  near  to  the  Old  in  form  and  spirit  that  they 
have  been  supposed  to  be  a  product  of  the  older  time. 
Christ  belongs  to  both  Testaments.  His  presence 
in  either  is  no  surprise ;  both  find  their  justification 
and  unity  in  Him.  Christianity  is  Judaism  trans- 
figured by  Christ.  Thus  to  study  the  Old  Testament 
by  itself,  without  regard  to  the  teaching  and  person  of 
Him  to  whom  it  points  and  in  whom  it  culminates,  is 
the  most  unscientific  thing  that  we  could  do.  It  is  to 
assume  that  we  can  know  the  significance  of  a  process 
apart  from  the  result  which  alone  explains  it.  It  is 
to  move  on  a  way  that  leads  nowhere,  because  we  do 
not  know  where  we  are  going.  We  are  children  of 
the  New  Covenant,  our  faith  rests  directly  on  the 
teaching  of  the  New  Testament.  But  on  what  does 
that  rest  ?  What  would  the  New  be  without  the  Old  ? 
Historically  impossible ;  and  the  New  loses  much  even 
of  its  religious  value  when  divorced  from  that  with 
which  it  is  historically  continuous ;  for  the  religion 
and  the  history  cannot  be  separated  without  loss  to 
both.  There  is  not  a  page  of  the  New  Testament 
which  will  not  clothe  itself  in  fresh  beauty  and  power 
when  it  is  historically  related  to  the  antecedent  life 
and  thought  of  the  Jewish  people.  Indeed,  much  of 
the  New  Testament  is  practically  a  dead  letter  to  one 
who  chooses  to  ignore  its  historical  relations.  Few 
would  pretend  that  the  Apocalypse  or  the  Epistle  to 

23 


354     OLD    TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

the  Hebrews  will  yield  their  richest  meaning  to  one 
who  does  not  trace  them  to  their  roots  in  the  symbols, 
the  laws,  the  institutions  of  the  Old  Testament.  And 
what  is  so  palpably  true  of  these  books  is  true,  in  its 
own  measure,  of  every  book  of  the  New  Testament, 
Epistle  and  Gospel  alike.  The  great  scheme  elabo- 
rated by  St.  Paul  in  his  Epistle  to  the  Romans  is  based 
upon  a  certain  view  of  the  early  history  of  our  race  as 
recorded  in  the  Old  Testament  and  supported  by  state- 
ments from  psalm  and  prophecy.  Even  the  parables 
1  of  the  Gospels,  whose  simplicity  and  naturalness  come 
home  to  the  untrained  mind  with  matchless  power, 
gain  in  clearness  and  force  when  we  know  some- 
thing of  the  national  life  and  mind  from  which  they 
sprang.  Who,  for  example,  were  those  heartless 
people  that  passed  pitilessly  by  the  man  who  was  set 
upon  by  robbers  on  the  way  to  Jericho  and  who  lay 
bleeding  and  prostrate  on  the  wayside  ?  And  who 
was  it  that  bound  up  his  wounds,  and  set  him  on  his 
own  beast  and  brought  him  to  an  inn  ?  Half  the 
beauty  and  more  than  half  the  sting  of  this  parable 
are  lost  upon  those  who  do  not  see  its  Old  Testament 
background.  If  to  understand  the  poet  we  must  go 
to  the  poet's  land,  so,  to  appreciate  the  many-colored 
life  that  lies  before  us  in  the  pages  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, the  evangelists  and  the  apostles  and  Him  whose 
life  they  set  forth,  and  whose  gospel  they  bring  into 
relation  to  the  needs  and  problems  of  their  time  and 
implicitly  of  all  time,  we  must  go  to  their  land  and  study 
the  influences  which  made  them  what  they  were.  In 
the  Old  Testament  lie  revealed  all  the  elements  of 
that  life  which,  on  its  better  side,  prepared  those  who 


THE    CHURCH  355 

were  waiting  for  the  consolation  of  Israel  to  receive 
the  Christ  when  He  should  come,  —  Simeon,  Anna,  the 
glad-hearted  shepherds  in  whose  ears  rang  the  angels' 
song,  and  the  little  band  that  shared  our  Saviour's 
toils  and  passion ;  and  which,  on  its  worse  side, 
developed  into  the  cant,  the  formalism,  and  the  heart- 
lessness  against  which  Christ  had  to  hurl  His  woes. 
The  roots  of  the  New  are  in  the  Old;  what  we  see 
in  the  transition  is  rather  a  development  than  a 
revolution.  Some  of  Christ's  words,  indeed,  point 
to  the  recognition  of  a  breach  between  the  two 
epochs  which  His  own  person  divided.  "  The  law  and 
the  prophets  were  until  John  ;  since  that  time  the 
kingdom  of  God  is  preached."  But  He  is  more  im- 
pressed with  the  continuity  than  with  the  breach. 
His  promise  of  life  to  those  who  do  what  is  written 
in  the  law  sounds  almost  as  if  there  were  no  difference 
between  the  two  dispensations;  to  believe  in  Moses 
and  the  prophets  with  heart  and  soul  ought  to  carry 
men  on  further  to  belief  in  Himself.  He  criticises  the 
old  covenant  with  the  firmness  of  one  who  speaks 
with  authority,  but  also  with  the  tenderness  of  one 
who  felt  that  it  was  a  true  word  of  God,  though  con- 
ditioned as  it  could  not  but  be  by  the  hardness  of 
men's  hearts,  and  by  the  rudimentary  conditions  of 
ancient  society.  He  thus  at  once  confirms  and  trans- 
forms the  Old  Testament;  what  it  needed  and  re- 
ceived from  Him  was  not  so  much  contradiction  as 
correction,  not  so  much  correction  as  completion. 

His  work  is  not  destructive  ;  it  is  a  revelation  of 
the  spirit  which  moved  the  holy  men  of  old,  freed 
from  the  limitations  of  temper  and  environment  by 


356     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

which  they  were  bound.  In  a  deep  sense  His  mes- 
sage was  the  same  as  theirs.  On  love  to  God  and  to 
man  hang  all  the  law  and  the  prophets  ;  on  that  love, 
too,  hangs  His  own  gospel.  His  relation  to  the  liter- 
ary record  of  the  past  of  His  people  was  one  of  sym- 
pathy and  appreciation,  not  of  antagonism.  When 
God  spake  unto  us  in  a  Son,  it  was  not  to  refute,  but 
in  the  main  to  corroborate,  to  deepen,  to  expand, 
the  earlier  messages  He  had  given  to  the  prophets 
in  divers  portions  and  in  divers  manners.  This 
question  of  the  relation  of  the  Old  Testament  to 
Christ  is  a  fundamental  one.  If  that  relation  could 
be  disproved,  it  would  be  difficult  to  justify  the 
prominence  given  to  the  study  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament in  the  theological  colleges  of  the  Christian 
Church.  Nothing  could  ever  prevent  it  from  being 
the  book  which  enshrined  the  greatest  religion  of  the 
past ;  but  in  a  Christian  college  it  is  not  enough  that 
a  book  on  which  so  much  time  and  effort  are  expended 
be  religious  ;  it  must  be  implicitly,  if  not  explicitly, 
Christian.  If  in  the  New  Testament  Christ  has 
come,  in  the  Old  He  is  coming ;  if  in  the  New  we  see 
Him,  in  the  Old  we  hear  Him.  It  is  perhaps  more 
difficult  to  understand  the  Old  Testament  apart  from 
Christ  than  Christ  apart  from  the  Old  Testament. 
The  result  sheds  light  on  the  process,  shows  what  it 
meant  and  whither  it  tended.  No  doubt  there  are 
moments  in  which  one  cannot  but  sympathize  with 
Schleiermacher  when  he  confesses  "  I  can  never  con- 
sider this  effort  to  prove  Christ  out  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment prophecies  a  joyful  work,  and  am  sorry  that 
so  many  worthy  men  torment  themselves  with  it." 


THE    CHURCH  357 

Much  may  be  lost,  and  little,  if  anything,  gained,  by 
seeking  in  the  Old  Testament  for  the  Christ  whom 
we  find  in  the  New,  with  all  the  rich  detail  of  a  his- 
toric personality.  We  must  look  with  generous  eyes, 
not  dwelling  upon  the  letter,  which  killeth,  if  we 
would  find  Him.  But  it  is  Christ  Himself  who  tells 
us  that  He  is  the  goal  of  Old  Testament  Scripture ;  it 
is  He  of  whom  Moses  spake,  and  all  that  is  written 
concerning  Him  in  law,  prophecy,  or  psalm  must  be 
fulfilled.  In  Him  the  purpose  of  God  which  before 
Him  was  partially  veiled,  though  growing  in  clear- 
ness, became  manifest;  what  more  natural,  what 
more  scientific,  than  to  carry  our  knowledge  of  this 
purpose,  revealed  by  and  in  Christ,  back  into  our  in- 
terpretation of  that  history  and  thought  which  but 
partially  revealed  it  ?  In  this  sense  Christ  is  present 
in  the  Old  Testament,  and  He  is  the  light  thereof ; 
we  trace  Him,  not  in  minute  predictions  of  place  and 
time,  but  in  the  hearts  of  men  and  in  the  course  of 
history.  Scripture  has  been  well  defined  as  "the 
record  of  the  redeeming  activity  of  God,  culminating 
in  the  history  of  the  Redeemer."  The  Redeemer 
explains  the  redemption.  If  it  was  formerly  the 
fashion  to  see  too  much  in  the  Old  Testament,  and  to 
force  it  to  speak  to  us  in  the  language  of  the  ripe 
Christian  consciousness,  it  is  now  perhaps  the  custom 
to  see  too  little,  and  to  dwell  more  upon  its  kinship 
with  the  cognate  Semitic  religions  than  upon  its 
latent  Christianity.  To  do  it  justice  we  must  know 
what  spirit  it  was  of  ;  and  to  know  that,  we  must 
learn  of  Him  in  whom  that  spirit  found  its  perfect 
expression. 


358      OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

The  presuppositions  of  our  Christian  faith  are  not 
the  axiomatic  truths  we  sometimes  take  them  to  be  ; 
they  are  all  historically  dependent  upon  revelations 
granted  to  men  whom  God  raised  up  from  time  to  time 
for  the  special  purpose  of  making  known  His  way  and 
will,  upon  truths  preserved  with  tenacity  by  select 
souls  amid  periods  of  indifference  and  opposition. 
Take,  for  example,  the  elementary  truth  that  God  is 
one,  the  belief  that  is  the  radical  condition  of  all  re- 
ligious progress.  That  belief,  simple  as  it  is,  has  a 
background  of  warfare  and  pain ;  it  sums  up  the  his- 
tory from  the  days  when  the  ancestors  of  the  Hebrew 
people  left  their  own  land  for  the  land  of  promise, 
down  to  the  days  when  the  clearer  revelation  of  God 
to  Moses  broke  upon  them  as  they  were  girt  with  the 
idolatry  of  Egypt,  and  perhaps  to  days  later  still. 
Or  take  the  truth  that  God  is  moral  and  cares 
more  for  righteousness  than  for  splendid  ceremonial. 
Simple  as  it  seems  to  men  who  have  been  taught  the 
inwardness  of  true  religion,  it  was  neither  simple  nor 
credible  to  the  average  Hebrew  of  the  eighth  cen- 
tury B.  c.  It  required  the  thunder  of  an  Amos  to 
remind  him  that  God  despised  his  sumptuous  offer- 
ings, and  would  punish  him  for  his  iniquity.  Or  take 
the  truth  that  God  is  gracious.  That  is  not  a  dis- 
tinctively New  Testament  truth,  though  the  grace  of 
God  is  seen  in  its  perfection  only  in  Jesus  Christ ;  it 
was  revealed  in  general  by  the  whole  course  of  Israel's 
history,  especially  at  great  crises,  when  by  a  more 
than  human  might  the  nation  and  the  religion  which 
it  represented  and  shielded  were  preserved  from  the 
perils  which  threatened  their  destruction ;  and  in 


THE   CHURCH  359 

particular,  by  the  more  definite  word  of  God  to  the 
psalmists,  whose  hearts  He  had  touched  with  the 
blessed  consciousness  of  sin  forgiven,  a  consciousness 
as  real  and  glad  to  the  men  of  the  old  as  of  the  newer 
time ;  and  to  the  prophets,  who  were  fond  of  compar- 
ing the  watchful  love  of  God  over  Israel  with  the  care 
of  a  shepherd  for  his  flock.  Or  take  the  truth  that 
God  is  the  God  of  all  men.  Here  we  seem  to  be  on 
peculiarly  New  Testament  ground,  moving  in  a  sphere 
of  thought  created  for  us  by  Jesus  Christ.  Yet  it  is 
not  quite  so ;  at  more  than  one  stage  there  is  an  im- 
plicit universalism  —  in  the  opening  chapters  of  Gen- 
esis, which  are  characterized  by  a  large-hearted 
humanity ;  in  the  Book  of  Proverbs,  which  has  guided 
the  life  of  Western  men  as  well  as  of  Orientals ;  in 
psalms,  like  the  sixty-seventh  .and  the  hundredth,  in 
which  the  salvation  of  God  is  ideally  related  to  all 
men.  One  distinguished  scholar  confesses  that  the 
study  of  the  Old  Testament,  with  its  magnificent 
breadth  of  sympathy,  fostered  and  deepened  in  him  a 
love  for  missions.  Or  take  the  truth  of  the  life  beyond 
death.  Here  we  miss  the  massive  strength  and  assur- 
ance of  New  Testament  doctrine,  nor  could  we  expect 
it  till  the  coming  of  One  who  had  plainly  robbed  the 
grave  of  its  victory.  And  yet,  in  the  tender  voices  of 
men  whose  hearts  tremble  with  hope  in  the  God  who 
had  been  the  light  of  their  life,  we  mark  plainly  enough 
a  preparation  for  the  clear,  strong  assurance  of  Christ, 
that  God  is  the  God  of  the  living.  All  that  is  deep- 
est and  dearest  in  our  faith  comes  from  the  New  Tes- 
tament ;  and  every  great  truth  of  the  New  Testament 
finds  its  historical  preparation  and  support  in  the 


36o     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

Old.1     What,  therefore,  God  and  Christ  have  joined 
together,  let  not  man  put  asunder. 

Such,  then,  is  the  place  of  the  Old  Testament  in 
our  faith,  and  a  position  corresponding  to  its  impor- 
tance to  our  faith  must  the  study  of  it  hold  in  every 
school  of  learning  which  professes  to  train  men  for 
the  ministry  of  Christ  and  His  Church.  But,  while 
a  clear  view  of  the  task  to  be  performed  is  the  first 
requisite  to  the  successful  performance  of  it,  it  also 
brings  us  face  to  face  with  the  necessity  of  selecting  a 
method  which  will  conserve  all  the  interests  at  stake. 
A  great  French  critic  remarked  that  it  was  at  once 
"  the  privilege  and  danger  of  Semitic  studies  to  touch 
on  the  most  important  problems  of  the  history  of 
humanity."  It  is  the  privilege  —  for  the  greatest 
study  of  mankind  is  God,  with  the  religion,  the  people, 
the  Christ  through  whom  He  has  made  Himself 
known ;  and  the  danger  —  for  here  the  sin  that  so 
easily  besets  is  the  temptation  to  traditionalism  on 
the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other  to  a  rash  disregard  of 
the  gathered  experience  of  the  past.  But  so  long  as 
we  remember  that  the  true  end  of  all  our  study  of  the 
Old  Testament  is  religious,  in  the  great  words  of  St. 
Paul,  "  that  the  man  of  God  may  be  complete,  fur- 
nished completely  unto  every  good  work  ; "  so  long  as 
we  recognize  that  sound  criticism  cannot  deprive  us, 
and  does  not  seek  to  deprive  us,  of  the  substance  of 
the  revelation,  but  strives  merely  to  set  it  in  its  own 
light,  we  shall  see  that  we  have  everything  to  gain  and 

1  A  simple,  but  scholarly  treatment  of  this  point  will  be  found  in 
G.  A.  Barton's  "  The  Roots  of  Christian  Teaching  as  found  in  the 
Old  Testament." 


THE   CHURCH  361 

nothing  to  fear  from  the  application  of  a  rigorously 
scientific  method.  While  the  criticism  of  the  Old 
Testament  is  not  of  yesterday,  the  pressure  of  its 
problems  has  never  been  so  keenly  felt  as  to-day ;  and 
it  would  be  fighting  with  the  spirit  of  our  time  and  of 
our  God  to  reject,  in  the  study  of  His  word,  those 
principles  and  methods  which  have  widened  our 
knowledge  and  deepened  our  wonder  in  the  study  of 
His  world.  The  problems  of  the  Old  Testament  were 
not  created  by  the  critics,  but  by  the  facts ;  they  are 
felt,  not  only  by  the  professional  scholar,  but  by  every 
one  who  reads  his  Bible  with  ordinary  care  and  with 
an  open  mind.  What  we  have  to  do  in  the  interests 
of  our  faith  is  not  to  suppress  the  problems  —  indeed 
we  cannot  —  but  to  face  them,  and  if  possible  to  solve 
them.  Many  of  the  old  landmarks  have  been  re- 
moved, but  the  land  remains,  every  inch  of  it.  It 
may  have  to  be  redistributed ;  but  its  redistribution 
will  only  make  it  a  more  real  possession,  by  giving  us 
order  for  confusion.  Reconstruction  cannot  destroy 
the  history  ;  it  can  only  make  it  more  lucid  and  help- 
ful. Criticism  is  only  a  means,  to  be  everywhere  — 
at  least  in  Biblical  scholarship  —  subordinated  to  a 
moral  and  religious  end.  Its  aim  is  constructive  ;  the 
need  for  it  is  imperative  ;  the  result  of  it  is  to  make 
many  a  rough  place  plain,  and  to  remove  many  a 
stumbling-block  from  the  path  of  honest  doubt.  But 
the  criticism  that  will  do  that  for  us  must  be  a  sane 
criticism,  which  knows  its  own  limitations,  which  will 
not  mistake  caprice  for  logic  or  substitute  theory  for 
fact.  It  will  recognize  that  behind  the  history  and 
the  literature  with  which  it  is  its  province  to  deal,  are 


362     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

the  throbbings  of  a  life  which  it  cannot  explain  but 
must  accept,  and  that  the  criticism  which  would  truly 
interpret  the  literature  must  be  possessed  of  the  same 
spirit  which  inspired  it.  Our  search  for  truth  is  sus- 
tained by  Christ's  promise  of  the  Spirit  who  leads  into 
all  the  truth. 

In  our  search  we  shall  be  grateful  for  any  help 
from  any  quarter,  whether  from  the  ruins  of  a  buried 
city,  the  fragments  of  a  broken  gravestone,  the  monu- 
ments of  a  forgotten  people,  or  the  conjectures  of 
criticism.  All  that  makes  the  Old  Testament  live  is 
a  contribution  to  history,  and  therefore  to  faith.  u  If 
the  Church  wants  to  be  saved,"  remarks  a  prominent 
clergyman  of  the  Church  of  England,  "  it  must  be- 
come contemporary."  True,  in  the  sense  that  religion 
can  only  be  vital  when  it  relates  itself  to  contemporary 
needs  and  forces :  true,  in  the  sense  that  the  prin- 
ciples of  religion  have  to  readjust  themselves  to  the 
changing  conditions  of  social  life.  But  if  the  Church 
wants  to  be  saved,  she  must  also  continue  to  be  his- 
toric, to  recognize  that  while  Christianity  is  as  a 
mighty  tree,  that  grows  mightier  with  the  ages,  her 
roots  are  deep  in  the  past.  Her  life  is  not  separable 
from  the  redemptive  activity  of  God  in  the  history  of 
that  people  through  whose  mediation  He  purposed  to 
bring  men  in  the  fulness  of  time  into  saving  com- 
munion with  Himself ;  and  for  us  that  activity  is  not 
now  separable  from  the  record  of  it,  that  is,  from  the 
Old  Testament.  We  shall  not  gain  the  present  by 
throwing  away  the  past.  The  power  of  a  ministry  to 
mould  the  time  into  which  God  has  sent  it  will  largely 
depend  upon  the  depth  of  its  knowledge  of  the  past 


THE   CHURCH  363 

on  which  its  faith  is  built,  and  on  the  richness  of  its 
sympathy  with  the  spirit  which  shaped  it.  That  criti- 
cism will  be  most  welcome  which  will  present  the 
history  in  its  most  reasonable  sequence,  and  most 
satisfactorily  justify  the  ways  of  God  to  men.  It  will 
have  at  once  the  impartiality  of  science,  and  the  bias 
which  is  forced  upon  the  careful  student  by  a  true 
interpretation  of  history.  But  though  the  method 
must  be  scientific,  the  interests  at  stake  are  not  only, 
nor  even  mainly,  scientific,  but  religious,  indeed 
Christian ;  the  end  is  not  knowledge,  but  increase  of 
faith  through  the  scientific  presentation  of  knowledge. 
And  this  end  will  be  best  attained  by  the  exercise  of 
courage  and  of  caution :  of  caution  —  for  the  way  is 
not  always  as  clear  as  it  might  be ;  of  courage  —  for 
the  ground  beneath  our  feet  is  firm. 

Such  studies  as  these  must  be  pursued  with  a  rever- 
ent regard  for  all  that  is  good,  whether  it  meet  us  in 
the  present  or  the  past.  They  will  not  needlessly 
clash  with  the  ripe  experience  or  reasoned  convictions 
of  the  past,  neither  will  they  repudiate  the  obligation 
to  research  to  which  the  wider  knowledge  and  pro- 
gressive spirit  of  our  day  have  bound  us.  Our  study 
of  the  Old  Testament  will  be  guided  by  two  considera- 
tions: First,  that  it  is  old,  and  therefore  demands 
the  most  careful  and  scientific  treatment  from  an  age 
which  prides  itself  on  looking  at  things  in  their  gene- 
sis and  growth.  But  far  more  important  for  us  is  the 
consideration  that  it  is  a  Testament,  a  covenant  be- 
tween the  living  God  and  living  men,  through  which, 
in  words  borrowed  from  the  opening  paragraph  of  the 
Westminster  Confession,  "  it  pleased  the  Lord  at 


364     OLD   TESTAMENT   CRITICISM 

sundry  times  and  in  divers  manners  to  reveal  Him- 
self and  to  declare  His  will  unto  His  Church,  for  the 
better  preserving  and  propagating  of  the  truth,  and 
for  the  more  sure  establishment  and  comfort  of  the 
Church  against  the  corruption  of  the  flesh  and  the 
malice  of  Satan  and  of  the  world."  But  the  most 
strenuous  study  and  the  most  probable  conclusions 
will  be  sobered  by  the  reflection  that  the  work  of  our 
own  age  is  in  all  likelihood  no  more  final  than  that  of 
the  age  which  our  work  tends  in  part  to  supersede. 
But  though  not  final,  it  is  not  therefore  futile.  Every 
age  has  its  own  work  to  do,  its  own  truth  to  learn 
and  appropriate.  The  future  will  owe  much  to  the 
earnest  effort  of  the  present,  as  the  present  owes 
much  to  the  toil  and  sincerity  of  the  past ;  and  we 
shall  be  well  content  to  play  our  little  part  in  the 
unfolding  of  that  truth  which  advances  with  the  cen- 
turies, and  thereby  show  ourselves  true  children  of 
the  God  who  is  "  patient,  because  He  is  eternal." 


APPENDIX 


OUTLINE    OF    THE    RESULTS    OF   OLD    TESTA- 
MENT  CRITICISM 

IT  is  obviously  impossible  to  sketch  and  summarize  even  the 
main  results  of  Old  Testament  criticism  within  the  compass  of 
a  paragraph  or  two;  yet,  for  the  sake  of  those  who  have  no 
time  to  follow  the  argument  into  its  complicated  detail,  it  may 
be  worth  while  to  present,  though  necessarily  in  the  briefest 
outline,  the  leading  points  of  that  argument.1 

One  of  the  books  which  has  played  a  radical  part  in  Old  Testa- 
ment criticism  is  the  Book  of  the  Prophet  Ezekiel,  who  pro- 
phesied during  the  earlier  part  of  the  exile  (592-570  B.  c.). 
The  last  nine  chapters  of  his  book  (xl.-xlviii.)  constitute  a  pro- 
gramme—  ideal  in  parts — for  the  regulation  of  the  worship 
after  the  exile  is  over ;  and  laws  are  laid  down  which  are  not 
always  in  harmony  with  the  corresponding  laws  of  the  Penta- 
teuch. The  discrepancies  are  undeniable :  so  real  are  they, 
indeed,  that  at  one  time  the  right  of  Ezekiel  to  a  place  in  the 
canon  was  disputed,  and,  as  the  Jewish  story  runs,  its  place  was 
only  assured  when  a  great  scholar,  after  consuming  "  three 
hundred  measures  "  of  midnight  oil,  succeeded  in  reconciling 
the  discrepancies.  Now,  if  the  Pentateuch  was  already  in  ex- 

1  Cf .  Gladstone,  "  Impregnable  Rock,"  ch.  v. :  "  It  seems  but  com- 
mon equity  that  we,  who  stand  outside  the  learned  world,  and  who  find 
operations  are  in  progress,  which  are  often  declared  to  have  destroyed 
the  authority  of  these  ancient  books,  should  be  supplied,  as  far  as  may 
be,  with  available  means  of  rationally  judging  the  nature  and  grounds 
of  the  impeachment.  And  it  is  unfortunate  that  this  has  been  little 
thought  of ;  and  that,  while  we  are,  it  may  almost  be  said,  drenched 
with  the  deductions  and  conclusions  of  the  negative  critics,  it  is  still  so 
difficult,  in  multitudes  of  instances,  to  come  at  any  clear  view  of  the 
grounds  on  which  they  build." 


366     OLD    TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

istence  with  its  elaborate  regulation  of  the  worship,  which,  as 
is  repeatedly  said,  was  to  be  valid  for  all  time,  why  should 
Ezekiel  have  thought  it  necessary  to  lay  down  any  such  pro- 
gramme at  all  ?  And  why  should  his  programme  differ,  in 
certain  material  respects,  from  a  book  which  had  so  high, 
ancient,  and  venerable  a  sanction  ?  A  comparison  of  the 
two  sets  of  laws  makes  it  pretty  clear  that  the  Priestly  Code 
(that  is,  Leviticus  and  kindred  sections)  is  an  advance  on 
the  programme  of  Ezekiel.  Ezekiel,  therefore,  it  is  concluded, 
chronologically  precedes  that  code,  and  so  his  apparent  deviations 
from  it  are  not  difficult  to  account  for.  Again,  if  that  code, 
with  its  ceaseless  and  elaborate  insistence  on  sacrifice,  had 
been  in  existence  in  pre-exilic  times,  it  is  highly  improbable 
that  Amos,  Hosea,  Isaiah,  Micah,  and  Jeremiah  would  have  ex- 
pressed themselves  as  they  did  on  the  subject  of  sacrifice.1 

One  of  the  important  arguments  by  which  this  conclusion  is 
reached  —  of  the  priority  of  Ezekiel  to  the  Priestly  Code  2  —  is 
that,  while  in  Leviticus  a  sharp  distinction  is  recognized  be- 
tween the  priests  and  the  Levites,  we  see  in  Ezekiel  xliv.  5  ff. 
the  origin  of  that  distinction.  The  Levites  who  had  minis- 
tered at  the  idolatrous  shrines  in  the  various  high  places 
throughout  the  land  were  to  be  degraded  from  the  priesthood. 
In  the  Book  of  Deuteronomy,  however,  with  hardly  any  ex- 
ception, no  such  distinction  between  priests  and  Levites  is 
drawn.  The  chronological  order  would  therefore  be  Deuteronomy, 
Ezekiel,  the  Priestly  Code. 

But  what  is  the  date  of  Deuteronomy  ?  There  is  little  doubt 
that  that  was  the  book  found  in  the  temple,  on  which  Josiah 
based  his  reformation.  Now  there  is  much  in  the  book  which 
suggests  that,  as  a  whole,  it  was  written  not  earlier  than  the 
time  of  Manasseh  (696-641  B.  c.).  But  the  mpst  important 
feature  of  the  book  is  its  emphatic  demand  for  the  centraliza- 

1  The  elaborate  collection  of  references  in  Stanley  Leathes'  "  The 
Law  in  the  Prophets  "  is  a  long  way  from  proving  his  contention  that 
"  the  several  books  of  the  Pentateuch,  substantially  as  we  have  them, 
were  well  known  to  all  the  prophets,  and  must  have  been  studied  by 
them"  (p.  ix). 

2  The   post-exilic  date  of  this  code  is  also  suggested,  though  not 
proved,  by  the  fact  that  there  is  practically  no  trace  of  its  operation 
till  the  days  of  Nehemiah  and  Ezra. 


APPENDIX  367 

tion  of  the  worship  :  the  local  sanctuaries  were  declared  illegal. 
Now  throughout  the  earlier  history  no  such  attitude  seems  to 
have  been  maintained  towards  these  sanctuaries.  Not  only  did 
the  people  worship  there,  but  also  their  leaders,  men  like  Saul, 
Samuel,  and  Elijah,  who  were  bound  to  know  ;  and  there  is  no 
hint  of  reproof  or  censure,  no  suspicion  that  they  are  doing 
anything  illegal.  Even  Amos  and  Hosea  do  not  condemn  the 
sanctuaries  as  such ;  therefore,  besides  internal  reasons,  there 
is  this  external  consideration  for  placing  Deuteronomy  after 
Amos  and  Hosea,  that  is,  after  735  B.  c.  Thus  the  chronological 
order  would  be  Amos,  Hosea;  Deuteronomy  ;  Ezekiel;  the  Priestly 
Code. 

Two  of  the  Pentateuchal  codes  have  thus  been  accounted 
for.  There  remains  the  briefer  code  known  as  the  Book  of 
the  Covenant  (Ex.  xx.  22-xxiii.  33).  In  comparison  with 
Deuteronomy,  the  character  of  this  code  is  rudimentary,  but 
little  more  can  be  determined  about  its  date  than  that  it  is 
prior  to  Deuteronomy.  There  are  then  three  strata  of  legislation 
in  the  Pentateuch :  the  Book  of  the  Covenant,  Deuteronomy,  the 
Priestly  Code,  in  this  chronological  order. 

Setting  aside  the  Book  of  Deuteronomy,  whose  legislation  is 
introduced  and  concluded  by  history,  there  are  also  three  strata 
of  historical  narrative.  The  double  accounts  of  the  Creation, 
the  Flood,  the  Covenant  with  Abraham,  etc.,  differing  so 
strikingly  in  their  phraseology  and  religious  conceptions,  sug- 
gested the  idea  that  behind,  at  least,  the  Book  of  Genesis 
there  lay  two  documents.  Further  examination  confirmed  this 
supposition,  and  proved  that  the  documents  ran  on  at  least 
into  the  Book  of  Joshua.  One  of  these  documents  —  that 
which  uses  the  name  of  "  Elohim  "  for  God  —  was  shown  to 
have  unmistakable  linguistic  and  religious  affinities  with  the 
priestly  legislation  ;  so  that  it  must  also  have  a  priestly  origin 
and  belong  to  the  later  period.  When  this  section,  beginning 
with  the  Creation,  ending  with  the  conquest  and  division  of  the 
land,  and  centring  in  the  legislation  of  Moses,  was  deducted 
from  the  historical  part  of  the  Hexateuch,  what  was  left  was 
found,  on  closer  examination,  to  be  not  quite  homogeneous. 
There  were  still  duplicates  left.  Two  very  similar  stories  would 
be  told,  with  this  difference,  among  others,  that  one  of  them 
named  the  Divine  Being  "  Jehovah,"  and  the  other  "  Elohim" 


368     OLD    TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

(cf.  Gen.  xii.  and  xx.).  This  observation  suggested  to  two 
scholars  quite  independently l  the  idea  that  there  were  here  two 
cognate  documents,  one  of  which  resembled  the  priestly  docu- 
ment in  using  the  word  "  Elohim,"  but  in  nothing  else.  These 
two  documents  are  prophetic  in  spirit  :  they  have  each  charac- 
teristics of  their  own  ;  but  in  language,  tone,  nature,  and  range 
of  interest  they  are  both  utterly  unlike  the  priestly  history. 
But  as  they  bear  such  a  general  resemblance  to  each  other,  and 
were  subsequently  welded  into  one,  the  resultant  history  is 
sometimes  spoken  of  simply  as  the  prophetic  history,  and 
known  as  JE.  Thus  there  are  believed  to  be  three  strata  of 
history  in  the  Hexateuch :  two  prophetic  documents  (J  and  E}, 
written  before  or  about  the  time  of  the  earliest  literary  prophets 
(Amos,  Hosea),  gathering  up  the  ancient  traditions  of  the 
people,  and  using  them  to  illustrate  the  purpose  of  God  for 
Israel  —  that  purpose  which  was  rooted  in  the  distant  past; 
and  the  priestly  document  (P),  the  interest  of  which  centres  very 
largely  in  the  worship. 

These  histories  all  deal  with  Israel's  origins  ;  but  the  purpose 
which  was  illustrated  by  the  story  of  the  early  days  could  be 
illustrated  with  equal  clearness  by  the  subsequent  history  of 
the  nation  ;  and  this  appears  to  have  been  done  by  certain  writers 
during  the  exile.  To  their  sad  eyes  the  lessons  of  the  past  were 
clear;  and  the  abrupt  break  in  the  national  history  afforded  an 
opportunity  to  recount  the  long  story  from  the  days  of  Joshua 
and  the  Judges  to  the  fall  of  Jerusalem.  There  was  plenty  of 
material  in  the  form  of  brief  histories,  biographies,  court 
annals,  etc.  This  material  was  all  worked  over  in  the  spirit 
of  Deuteronomy,  and  the  facts  were  so  set  as  to  illustrate  its 
characteristic  teaching,  that  national  faithfulness  meant  pros- 
perity, and  idolatry,  ruin  —  a  lesson  which  had  received  the 
most  tragic  confirmation  from  the  exile  itself.  It  was  this 
period  then  (i.  e.  the  exile)  that  gave  us  the  Books  of  Joshua,  Judges, 
Samuel,  and  Kings  in  much  their  present  form. 

After  the  exile,  priestly  interests  began  to  predominate. 
Jerusalem,  and  especially  the  temple,  became  for  the  Jew  the 
centre  of  the  world.  The  priestly  activities  were  directed  to 
literature  as  well  as  ritual,  and  the  period  was  marked,  as  we 
should  expect,  by  religious  poetry  and  history.  Older  psalms 
i  Cf.  p.  72,  note  2. 


APPENDIX  369 

were  adapted  and  new  psalms  were  composed  for  use  in  the 
public  worship  of  the  temple.  To  this  time  (i.  e.  the  post-exilic 
age)  much,  if  not  most,  of  the  Psalter  is  relegated  by  modern 
criticism.  Further,  the  whole  history  of  the  people,  from  the 
very  beginning  down  to  the  days  of  Ezra,  was  written  from 
the  priestly  standpoint ;  so  that  the  Books  of  Chronicles,  Ezra, 
oSTehemiah,  are  the  outcome  of  the  same  spirit  as  elaborated  the 
priestly  legislation,  and  the  priestly  history  in  the  Hexateuch. 
The  stern  facts  of  the  third  and  second  centuries  B.  c.  cre- 
ated a  new  species  of  literature.  Their  gloom  is  reflected  in 
Ecclesiastes ;  their  sorrows  are  echoed  in  the  Maccabean 
psalms  ;  their  concentrated  passion  and  invincible  hope  glow 
in  the  pages  of  the  Apocalypse  of  Daniel;  and  within  half  a 
century  the  last  word  of  the  Old  Testament  had  almost  cer- 
tainly been  spoken. 

A  very  brief  tabulation  of  the  more  important  dates,  some  of 
which  are  necessarily  very  uncertain,  and  are  only  offered 
provisionally,  will  show  at  a  glance  the  main  bearings  of  the 
critical  reconstruction  of  the  literary  history. 

B.  c. 

Traditions,  war-ballads,  and  other  songs  .     .     1200-1000 

The  prophetic  history  of  the  Jeho  vist  document  850 

The  prophetic  history  of  the  Elohist  document  750 

Amos  and  Hosea 750-735 

Isaiah 740-700 

Micah 725-690 

Nahum 650 

Zephaniah 630 

Deuteronomy  (written  probably  in  Manasseh's 

reign),  published 621 

Jeremiah 626-586 

Habakkuk 600 

Exile  597  B.  c.  (first  deportation)  586  (second 

deportation)  to 538 

Ezekiel 592-570 

Lamentations 586 

All  the  historical  books  up  to  Kings  edited  in 

the  spirit  of  Deuteronomy 600-560 

Deutero-Isaiah 540 

Haggai  and  Zechariah 520 

Psalter,  collected,  edited,  and  largely  composed  520-150 


370     OLD    TESTAMENT    CRITICISM 

B.  C. 

Priestly  Code  (Leviticus,  etc.) 500-450 

Malachi 460 

Ruth 450 

Joel,  Jonah,  Obadiah,  Job 450-400 

Pentateuch  in  practically  its  present  form,  before  400 

Chronicles,  Ezra,  Nehemiah 350-250 

Song  of  Songs 350 

Proverbs 300 

Ecclesiastes 250 

Daniel 167 

Esther 150 


INDEX 


ABBOTT,  Evelyn,  287. 

Abbott,  Lyman,  30,  34. 

Abuse  of  opponents,  41. 

Allegorical  method,  107,  108,  179. 

American  Journal  of  Semitic  Lan- 
guages and  Literatures,  52. 

American  Journal  of  Theology,  92, 
315. 

Anderson,  Sir  R.,  41,  45,  87,  326. 

Anonymous  books,  212. 

Anthropomorphism,  293. 

Apologetic,  126,  131-136. 

Archaeological  results,  17. 

Argument  by  innuendo,  37. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  100,  102. 

Astruc,  193. 

Authority,  12,  211,  212. 

Authority  and  Archaeology,  17. 

Authorship,  211-216. 

BABYLONIAN  stories,  296-298. 

Bacon,  B.  W.,  29,  66,  73. 

Baethgen,  55,  56. 

Barry,  9. 

Barton,  360. 

Batten,  119. 

Baudissin,  58. 

Beard,  27,  71,  334. 

Behrends,  35,  42,  89. 

Besant  and  Rice,  139. 

Bias  in  interpretation,  63,  233-236. 

Biblical  World,  56,  286. 

Bibliotheca  Sacra,  8,  37,  140,  197. 

Blake,  31. 

Blomfield,  15,  20,  33,  231. 

Book  of  the  Covenant,  50,  73,  367. 

Bradley,  A.  C.,  96. 


Bredenkamp,  9,  56,  58,  65,  250. 
Briggs,  4,  37. 
British  Weekly,  332. 
Budde,  50,  58,  119. 

CANON,  closing  of,  75,  321 ;  limits  of, 
308-311. 

Caricature  of  opponents,  38. 

Catholicizing  of  Protestant  churches, 
187. 

Cave,  Principal,  16,  39-40,  89. 

Chambers,  T.  W-,  198. 

Charles,  Professor,  244. 

Cheyne,  7,  56,  57. 

Christ,  11,  205  ff.,  348,  355  ff. 

Chronicles,  Book  of,  288. 

Clemen,  11. 

Cobb,  W.  F.,  177. 

Cobb,  W.  H.,  53. 

Cobern,  286. 

Coe,  G.  A.,  116,  187. 

Cognate  Semitic  languages,  94. 

Coming  Bible,  26. 

Composite  books,  38,  49,  138-143. 

Concessions  to  criticism,  15-18. 

Conservative  instinct,  189. 

Conservative  reaction,  68. 

Contentio  Veritatis,  7. 

Cornill,  6. 

Credibility  of  the  Bible,  9. 

Critical  Review,  59,  134,  336. 

Critical  view  of  the  Old  Testament, 
318-321,  365-370. 

Criticism:  its  aims,  23;  attitude  to 
history,  332 ;  conditions,  89  ff. ; 
gains,"  122  ff . ;  losses,  109  ff. ;  mean- 
ing, 78,  79  ;  methods,  136  ff . ;  ne- 


INDEX 


cessity,  79-88;  popularization  of, 
5-7,  31;  processes,  19,  25;  relation 
to    church,    22;     results,     72-76; 
temper,  28,  47. 
Cuyler,  2. 

DANIEL,  Book  of,  18,  59. 

David,  215,  216,  221. 

Davidson,  A.  B.,  67,  88,  338. 

Davis,  327. 

Day,  E.,  50. 

Deborah,  Song  of,  52,  259-261. 

Decalogue,  50. 

Delitzsch,  24,  212,  279. 

Denney,  332. 

Deuteronomy,  74,  284-286,  366. 

Devotional    use    of    Scripture,   113, 

114. 

Diatessaron,  138. 
Dictionary,    Hastings'    Bible,     172, 

173,  247. 
Diestel,  176. 
Differences     among    critics,    48-61 ; 

reasons  for,  62  ff . 
Difficulties,    moral  and   intellectual, 

126-128. 
Discrepancies,   111,  128-130,   200  f., 

215,  277. 
Dittmar,  305. 
Dods,  338. 

Dogmatic  theology,  120-122. 
Driver,  17,  66,  73, 172,  173,  247,  319. 
Drummond,  Henry,  21. 
Duhm,  43,  55. 

Duplicate  narratives,  140-151. 
Dutch  translation  of  Old  Testament,  5. 
Duty  of  investigation,  186. 

EQER,  Karl,  179,  184. 
Ellicott,  15,  34,  36,  72,  231. 
Encyclopaedia  Biblica,  69,  335. 
Engert,  340. 
Esther,  Book  of,  309. 
Evolution,  230  ff.,  327. 
Exile,  influence  of,  74,  368. 
Exposition,  meaning  of,  94. 
Expositor,  The,  244,  285,  319,  327. 
Expositor's  Bible,  6,  338. 
Expository  Times,  53,  59. 


Ezekiel,  365  f. 
Ezra-Nehemiah,  51. 

FACT,    importance   of,   to  Christian 

religion,  106,  332  f. 
Fall,  story  of,  295  f. 
Fiction,  333-338. 
Fisher,  251. 
Flippancy,  43. 
Flood,   story  of,  143-151,  279,  296- 

298. 

Foreign  missions,  120. 
Forgery,  43. 

Fronde,  37,  179,  183,  189,  257. 
Fulfilment    of    Old     Testament    in 

Christ,  206  f.,  353-357. 
Fulliquet,  4,  10,  335. 
Funcke,  271. 

GERMAN  scholarship,  in  its  relation 
to  the  churches,  22;  depreciation 
of,  35  ;  Froude's  tribute  to,  37. 

German  translation  of  Old  Testa- 
ment, 5  f. 

Gibson,  I.,  315. 

Girdlestone,  5,  23,  33. 

Gladstone,  48,  112,  304,  365. 

Gnostics,  270. 

Grace,  100. 

Grammatico-historical  principles  of 
interpretation,  183  f.,  204. 

Gray,  G.  B.,  6. 

Greek  literature,  63  f.,  309  f. 

Green,  W.  H.,  8,  65. 

Gunkel,  23,  44,  49,  51,  56,  66,  69  f., 
171,  276,  297,  330. 

Guthe,  171. 

HAECKEL,  136. 

Hammurabi,  code  of,  249  f. 

Harmonistic  devices,  82,  87. 

Harnack,  6,  175,  178,  187,  190. 

Harper,  75. 

Hatch,  100. 

Hazard,  W.  II.,  19,  315. 

Hellenica,  287. 

Henson,  30. 

Herodotus,  63,  168. 


INDEX 


373 


Hexateuch,  72  f.,  367  f.  (See  Com- 
posite books.) 

Hibbert  lectures,  71. 

Higher  criticism,  objects  menaced  by, 
8-13;  meaning  of,  19;  difficulties 
of,  19;  not  new,  193. 

Hilprecht,  299. 

Historians,  faith  of  Biblical,  305  f. 

Historical  criticism,  238-241,  321- 
323. 

Historical  method,  107,  184. 

Historical  truth,  277-291. 

History  in  the  Bible,  105  f.,  329  f. 

Hofmann,  44. 

Holzinger,  73. 

Homer,  86, 168,282. 

Hopfl,  15  f.,  34,  169,  231  f. 

Horton,  7,  30. 

Hiihn,  305. 

Humanity  of  the  Bible,  272  ff 

Humor,  44. 

ILLINGWORTH,  71. 
Immanence  of  God,  324. 
Incarnation  an  accommodation,  225. 
Inspiration,  268  ff. 

JASHAR,  Book  of,  256,  261. 

Jebb,  R.  C.,  287. 

Jehonadab, 62. 

Jennings  and  Lowe,  204. 

Jericho,  fall  of,  266  f . 

Jewish  Quarterly  Review,  5,  310. 

Job,  Book  of,  58  f . 

Johnston,  H.  A.,  15. 

Johnston,  J.  B.,  59. 

Jordan,  W.  G.,  41,  118,  315. 

Journal  of  Biblical  Literature,  50,  53, 

57. 
Jowett,  268. 

KAUTZSCH,  6,  20,  23,  49  f.,  55,  57,  59, 

134,  136,  342. 
Kennedy,  10,  38,  48. 
Kent,  6,  51. 
Kittel,  92,  172. 
Kohler,  14,44,331. 
Konig,  53,  67  f.,  173. 
Kuenen,  12,  236,  238. 


LAGRANGK,  3. 

Law,  William,  242  f . 

Leathes,  366. 

Legislation,  growth  of,  286. 

Lenormant,  254. 

Lex  Mosaica,  8. 

Lias,  J.  J.,  2. 

Liddon,  268. 

Limitation   of    Christ's    knowledge, 

225-227. 
Lincke,  52. 
Literary  criticism,  69,  71,  238-241, 

321-323. 

Literary  interest  of  the  Bible,  124. 
Lock,  101. 

Loisy,  30,  76,  121,  238,  252  f. 
Luther,  103  f.,  169, 176,  178-183. 

MACCABEAN  psalms,  55. 
Matthes,  Professor,  58. 
Meagreness  of  our  knowledge,  62  ff . 
Meinhold,  197,  237. 
Messianic  prophecy,  10, 16, 53,  206  f ., 

243. 

Meyer,  F.  B.,  31. 
Miracle,  101-103,  261-267. 
Misrepresentation  of  opponents,  34. 
Mitchell,  29,  49,  65  f. 
Moabite  stone,  247-249. 
Modern  religious  teachers,  309. 
Montefiore,  5,  310. 
Moody,  21. 
Moore,  Aubrey,  276. 
Moore,  G.  F.,  29,  66. 
Moral  difficulties,  126,  284-291. 
Morality,  111-113,  291  f. 
Mormonism,  130. 
Moses  as  a  writer,  216  f . 
Mozley,  126. 
Munhall,  35, 41,  65, 198. 
Myers,  174,  308. 
Myth,  280-284. 
McCurdy,  49,56,195. 
McFadyen,  143,  278,  303. 
McGiffert,  217. 
Macgregor,  7,  32. 
Mclntosh,  HM  2,  4. 
Mackay,  59,  142. 
MacLaren,  105. 


374 


INDEX 


NASH,  47. 

New  Testament,  attitude  to  Old 
Testament,  10  f.,  197-205;  cita- 
tions, 305 ;  goal  of  Old  Testament, 
352  ff. 

Nowack,  54. 

OESTERLEY,  327. 

Old  Testament,  absolute  value,  347- 

352;  as  preparatory,  352-360. 
Ottley,  6,  50. 
Outlook,  The,  120. 
Oxford  Hexateuch,  286. 

PALEY,  198. 

Patriarchal  stories,  9,  163-173,  328- 
338. 

Paul's  interpretation  of  Old  Testa- 
ment, 201-205. 

Pentateuch,  81  ff.  (See  Composite 
books.) 

Perowrie,  283. 

Personality,  251. 

Peters,  J.  P.,  7,  17,  50,  56,  59,  221. 

Philo,  203. 

Piepenbring,  50. 

Plato,  64,  135,  330  f. 

Poetry  in  Old  Testament,  254-261. 

Polychrome  Bible,  26. 

Positive  religious  message  of  Scrip- 
ture, 117,  337-344. 

Post-exilic  period,  74  f . 

Praises  of  Scripture  within  Scripture, 
307  f. 

Preachers,  difficulties  of,  3,  13;  duty 
of,  26,  116  f . 

Prepossession  in  study,  233-236,  270. 

Presbyterian  and  Reformed  Review, 
17,  36,  327. 

Preuss,  181. 

Priestly  code,  73,  366  f. 

Progressiveness  of  revelation,  76, 
293  f.,  353  ff. 

Proof  texts,  130  f. 

Prophecy,  10,  152-158. 

Prophets,  inspiration  of,  299-302,350. 

Protestantism,  174  ff. 

Psalms,  55-58,  341,  351  f . 

Pseudonymous  books,  289  f. 


RECOVERY   of  books  of  the   Bible, 

123. 

Reel  path,  H.  A.,  92. 
Red  Sea,  crossing  of,  262  f. 
Renaissance,  189-191. 
Reuss,  171. 

Reverence,  need  of,  45. 
Ridicule,  33. 
Robertson,  James,  68. 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  3  f.,  189. 
Rupprecht,  45. 
Ryle,  299. 

SAMSON,  story  of,  264  f. 

Sanday,  24,  29,  68,  70,  253,  301,  332. 

Sayce,"l7,  18,  61. 

Schleiermacher,  356. 

Schmiedel,  334. 

Science,  275-277. 

Selbie,  59,  134,  335. 

Sellin,  49,  50,  54,  56,  69. 

Smith,  G.  A.,  6,  21,  57,  118  f.,  266. 

Smith,  G.  T.,  15,  35  f. 

Smith,  H.  P.,  4. 

Smith,  J.,  1,  37,  66,  231. 

Smith,  W.  R.,  4,  6,  39,  118,  137, 
341,  343. 

Stave,  Erik,  253. 

Steuernagel,  71. 

St.  Patrick,  life  of,  257  f. 

Streatfeild,  283. 

Students'  attitude  to  Scripture,  134  f. 

Studien  und  Kritiken,  11,  26. 

Suffering  servant,  54. 

Sunday  School  Times.  5,  8,  22,  173, 
267,  299. 

Supernatural,  11  f.,  230  ff. 

Superscriptions  of  Psalms,  105. 

Sympathy  necessary  for  interpreta- 
tion, 95-98. 

TEACHING  of  Christ,  227  f. 
Terry,  M.  S.,  67. 
Theodore  of  Mopsuestia,  104. 
Theologische    Literaturzeitung,     58, 

67,  183. 

Thomas  a  Kempis,  98. 
Thomson,  W.  D.,  267. 
Thuevdides,  63,  86,  287. 


INDEX 


375 


Timeless  element,  109. 
To}',  C.  H.,  4,  58. 
Tradition,  9. 

Traditional  view  of   Old  Testament, 

316-318. 

Transcendence  of  God,  324. 
Translations,  ancient,  91. 
Trumbull,  H.  C.,  267. 

UNITY  of  the  Bible,  295. 
Urquhart,  26. 

VALETON,  120,  220. 
Variant  readings,  90. 
Volck,  16,  65,  142,  315. 
Volz,  54. 


WADE,  G.  W.,  173,  247. 
Walker,  Patrick,  122. 
Wars  of  Jehovah,  book  of,  255. 
Wedgwood,  Julia,  273,  295,  304. 
Wellhausen,  44,  50,  55,  236-238. 
Westcott  and  Hort,  92. 
Westminster  Assembly,    345 ;    Con- 
fession, 363 ;  Directory,  85. 
Wright,  A.,  16,  105. 

ZANGE,  136. 

Zeitschrift  fur  wissenschaftliche  The- 

ologie,  52. 
Zeitschrift  fur  die  alttestamentliche 

Wissenschaft,  58. 


INDEX  OF   SCRIPTURE  REFERENCES 


Page 
Genesis,  i.  5       ......     275 

i.  26     .......     134 

ii.  23     .......     256 

vi.  5-vii.  5      ....  143-151 

vii.  11    .......    257 

viii.  21     .......    297 

x  ........  163-166 

xii.  1  ........     306 

xii.  6  ........       82 

xiv.  14     ......   82,  167 

xviii  .........     168 

xviii.  14    .......     244 


xx.  13 

xxv.  23 

xxxvi.  31 


306 

166 

82 


Exodus,  iii.  6    .....  221-223 

xv  ........      262  f. 

xxiv.  9-11    ......    293 

xxxiii.  11,  20  ......     293 

Numbers,  xvi.  32  .....     127 

xxvi.  11     .......    127 

Deuteronomy,  ii.  10-12    .     .     .     285 
iv.  12-15  ......     293 

vi.  4  f  .......      90 

xxvii.  3  ........     217 

xxxiv.  10   .....  82 


Page 

Joshua,  x.  12-14 261 

Judges,  iv.  18  ff 260 

v.  24-27 259 

xv 264  f. 

xviii.  29 82,  167 

2  Samuel,  xxii 90 

xxiv.  24 87 

1  Kings,  ix.  11-14 167 

2  Kings,  x.  15  ff 62 


xvn 303 

1  Chronicles,  xxi.  25  ....       87 

2  Chronicles,  viii.  2     ....    167 
xiv.  5;  xv.  17;  xvii.  6;  xx. 

33 127,277 

xxii.-xxiii 288 

Job,  xxxviii.  3,  4 281 

Psalms,  i 307 

xviii 90 

xix 307 

xix.  2 244 

xxiii.  .     .      79-81,  108,  341,  351 

xl 158-162 

xl.  6 305 

Ii 104,  341  f. 

Ixv 104 


376 


INDEX 


Page 
Psalms,  Ixvii  .......     246 

ciii  .........     109 

cix.  9-12   ......     292 

ex  ........      220  f. 

cxix  .........     307 

cxxvii  .........     104 

cxxxix.  6    .......    244 

Ecclesiastes   .......     289 

Song  of  Songs    ....       108,  123 

Isaiah,  viii.  11    ......     300 

xlv.  1    ........     305 

xl.-lxvi.     .   52-54,  83  f.,  152-158, 
339  f. 

Jeremiah,  xviii.  19-23     ...     292 
xx.  9      .......     301 


xxxv 

Amos,  iii.  8;  vii.  15 
Jonah  ..... 


....    300 
218-220,  290  f  . 


Jonah,  iv.  11 203 

Micah,  iii.  8 301 

Matthew,  x.  5 99 

xxii.  31 214 

Mark,  xii.  26 214 

xvi.  9  ff 86 

Luke,  ix.  55 205 

xx.  37 214 

John,  i.  18;  vi.  46 168 

Romans,  xv.  4 307 

1  Corinthians,  ix.  7  ff.  .  .  .  202 

x.  11 204 

Galatians,  iii.  16  ....  201  f . 

iv.  24 204 

1  Timothy,  v.  18 202 

2  Timothy,  iii.  16  f.     .     .     .  198-200 
Hebrews,  x.  5 305 


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